Meet Your District Attorney

A project of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of California.

What is a DA? "District attorneys (DAs) are more than just prosecutors. The district attorney’s job is to seek justice in criminal cases, work to prevent crime, and serve as a leader in the diverse communities they represent. The DA is also an elected official. In California, we have 58 elected DAs each representing one of our 58 counties."

What makes a DA so powerful? "District attorneys in California have tremendous power to impact the lives of millions of people, their families, and entire communities. If someone is accused of committing a crime, it is not the police but the DA who has the sole power to decide if criminal charges are filed and the severity of those charges. They alone decide who is deserving of a jail or prison sentence and who will instead be routed into a diversion program to help rebuild their life, or have charges dismissed."

How do DAs serve their community? "DAs are supposed to serve the interests of the people who live in their county. DAs are public servants who not only work in courtrooms, but also affect your day-to-day life by supporting or opposing statewide policies and deciding how to spend taxpayer dollars. In the past four years, California voters have overwhelmingly supported safe and sensible justice reforms — but most DAs have gone against this tide of change."

Be DA for a day! Click the link to run through "examples of decisions your district attorney faces every day. What would you do?"

Meet your DA. "Each county has their own district attorney who lives in and serves that district. Step 1, find out who your DA is and how they stand on important policy issues. Then, scroll down to Step 2 to send them an email to say, 'Hey!'"

In the meantime, let's see how our DA aligns with our community. I live in Alameda County and the DA here is Nancy O'Malley...

70% of our county voted against Prop 20, which would have expanded the list of crimes unnecessarily classified as felonies while also expanding access to people's DNA testing without just cause. O'Malley was neutral.

73.9% of our county voted in favor of Prop 17, which allowed people on parole for felony convictions to vote. O'Malley was neutral.

66% of our county voted in favor of Prop 64, which legalized marijuana use and cultivation. O'Malley was neutral.

77% of our county voted in favor of Prop 57, which expanded the opportunities for parole and good behavior incentives for non-violent offenders and allowed judges to decide whether to try certain juveniles as adults in court. O'Malley was neutral.

74% of our county voted in favor of Prop 47, which reclassified certain crimes as misdemeanors instead of felonies unless the defendant had prior convictions for murder, rape, certain sex offenses or certain gun crimes; allowing resentencing for those currently serving a prison sentence for any of the offenses that the initiative reduced to misdemeanors; and creating the Safe Neighborhoods and Schools Fund to receive appropriations based on savings from the initiative. O'Malley opposed this proposition.

79% of our county voted in favor of Prop 36, which reformed our broken "three strikes" law. O'Malley was neutral.

Not exactly the record of a progressive prosecutor, let alone a public servant with the courage of their convictions. This occurred at the same time as she was colluding with police unions to attack her political opponents, letting cops off with literal murder, and opposing necessary reforms to our criminal legal system.

To be clear: our system is, by design, not necessarily built for justice, let alone equity, transparency, sustainability, rehabilitation, or healing. That said, the people in power have enormous discretion to dismantle these oppressive disparities and reimagine public safety by building something better.

Unfortunately, as we should have learned long ago, we can't depend on any single individual or group of individuals to save us. We cannot be passive observers of society. We must be active participants, fully invested in our communities, informed about our elected officials, and empowered to hold them accountable, from the ballot box to the courthouse to the street corner to the classroom to inside our very homes.

Take note and take care.