What’s ousted DA Pamela Price up to now? Making a podcast

Former Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price can now add a new job title to her resume: podcaster.

Running on a platform of fighting mass incarceration, holding law enforcement accountable, and reforming the criminal justice system from the inside, Price surprised many in 2022 when she was elected DA, beating Terry Wiley, a former assistant district attorney who had been endorsed by former DA Nancy O’Malley. But from Day 1, Price faced unrelenting criticism from inside the DA’s office and by activists. 

Throughout her term, critics accused Price of being “too lenient” on people suspected and convicted of crimes and mishandling several high-profile cases. Committees backing Price’s ouster raised over $1 million, much of which came from wealthy individuals.

On Nov. 5, those efforts succeeded: Of the nearly 600,000 votes cast by Alameda County residents, 63% — more than 375,000 voters — supported Price’s recall.

Last month, Price launched “Pamela Price Unfiltered,” an audio and visual podcast featuring her candid takes on local and national politics, police accountability, and criminal justice reform.

The Oaklandside sat down with Price to ask her what she aims to accomplish with her new podcast, her reflections on the recall election, and her hopes for the new DA. This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

What is your job title now?

I’m a lawyer. I’m a resident of Alameda County. I’m a political activist. I’m an elected member of the Democratic Party. I’m the former district attorney of Alameda County, and I’m the host of “Pamela Price Unfiltered.”

It seems like podcasting is a medium many people are gravitating toward nowadays. Why did you decide to start a podcast?

There’s so much information that people are bombarded with. What a podcast does is it allows you to get more in-depth information. It’s not just based on the headline.

My goal is to help people navigate the complexities of all the challenges that we’re facing and the world that we’re living in, which is moving so fast. I want to focus on issues that impact us, our families, our communities, and try to help folks understand or get a perspective on it, which I think is important.

How did you come up with the idea of starting a podcast?

It wasn’t actually my idea. Multiple people were telling me, “You should do this or this,” “You should write a book,” “You should do a podcast,” “You should write.”

I’ve been at the top of the criminal justice system as a top law enforcement official in the county, and I’ve been at the top of the civil litigation system, having to argue cases in the United States Supreme Court and the California Supreme Court, so I’ve seen the law from both sides, whether it’s civil or criminal, from the highest perches.

I’ve also been involved in politics and have done something that no one else did in about 100 years, which is run a campaign and win the election for district attorney of Alameda County. So there’s value in those efforts and lessons learned from that perspective, and I’ll be able to share a lot of that on “Pamela Price Unfiltered.” We need diverse voices in our conversations, and unfortunately, we don’t have that, particularly in the Bay Area.

What does production for “Pamela Price Unfiltered” look like?

It’s a weekly podcast, so every week we’re bringing exciting topics and guests — some local, some national. Our first podcast episode was on immigration, which is important for Alameda County. We are extremely diverse. I looked at the research, and we’re the fourth-most diverse county in the country. Our diversity goes from the Middle East to Africa to Latin America to Afghanistan and Thailand. We all live in a bubble because we are so diverse, and we take it for granted. And that makes us a target, quite frankly, in this season. So it was important to address that and how it’s impacting young people in our schools, which is a very sensitive subject.

This week, we’re looking at the Oakland mayor’s race — how we got here, what’s happened, and what the indictment [of former Mayor Sheng Thao] says.

If we talk about corruption in Oakland politics, it didn’t just start in 2025.

I thought it was interesting how, in your first episode, you brought up the Laken Riley Act, which was the first thing President Trump did in his second term. The law directs U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials to deport anyone without legal status who is charged with minor crimes like shoplifting or theft, as well as more serious crimes. That’s a change from waiting until the person is convicted.

Of course. People need to know that, and they haven’t gotten that information all the time.

I remember in early January, my pastor called me and he was alarmed. He said, “[ICE is] coming into churches.” It’s bad when you have pastors who are very frightened for their congregations.

There’s so much that has spiraled out of a narrative of inhumanity. I’m very upset with what’s happening in Fremont, where they basically made it illegal to feed the hungry and cold. 

Can you tease any topics or guests who will be featured in future episodes?

For March, which is Women’s History Month, I’m going to have two amazing women on my podcast. 

We are going to have a podcast episode on enhancements and a female lawyer who knows all about that. 

And we’re going to have a podcast episode with Dr. Mia Settles-Tidwell, who has written an amazing book called “Unscathed: A Harm Reduction Strategy for Women of Color in the Workplace.” It’s about how women of color who are fighting for social justice go into toxic environments and come out unscathed.

Does that second topic resonate with you?

Oh, yes.

Let’s take a step back and look at the Nov. 5 election. Nearly 63% of voters approved the recall against you. Can you speak to the apparent readiness of so many Alameda County voters to recall you?

The process of the recall, which started immediately after I was elected, was about seeding the electorate to get them prepared to vote in the way that they did. And how do you do that? With misinformation. With amplifying anything negative, suppressing information about anything positive, and weaponizing victims.

I call it “the greatest Jedi mind trick” — persuading people that someone who is a victim of sexual harassment, sexual assault, and domestic violence doesn’t care about victims. I mean, how is that? Some might say it’s gaslighting. I say it’s a Jedi mind trick.

We did such amazing work on behalf of victims that I will always be so proud of. And yet, the public was not kept informed about that, and our efforts to inform them went over people’s heads.

There was, honestly, a concerted campaign with a whole lot of money behind it to shape the narrative. And that was a process. So by the time you got to November 2024, you had two years of people being told, “Oh no, you can’t have this Black woman in charge of this office.”

It’s interesting that you described the recall as a “process.” Can you expand on that?

I was dealing with a backlog of cases. I walked into the office at the Victim-Witness Assistance Division, and I was like, “Who is getting services here?” Imagine this room being filled with files strewn everywhere and advocates crying about how bad it was. The requirement that the police give us police reports within 10 days wasn’t being tracked or monitored. Without that information, we weren’t able to provide services to victims, so we had to create all sorts of systems. It was really bad. In the first quarter, we were trying to figure out how to fix it and get our footing.

Most people [in other jobs] get a probationary period of 90 days, six months, maybe even a year — we had a week. And suddenly, people were saying we didn’t know what we were doing. That was when the attacks started.

I’d say that the county was under attack from Day 1. There was an intense desire to not have a progressive Black woman challenge the system. The backlash was early and got more intensified.

On election night, I was assigned to cover the recall campaign’s official watch party. I spoke with multiple homicide victims’ families who said they were upset with you. I saw some families who were, quite frankly, praying for your recall to succeed. These families have obviously been through a lot of trauma and had very strong emotional reactions to the recall. Is there anything you’d like to say to them?

I can’t really speak to their trauma. I didn’t know them. They didn’t know me.

The victims I worked with, and the families I met with, really appreciated the work we did for them and the fact that we stood with them. Unfortunately, in our view, these people, who were recruited as part of the recall, became political actors because they weren’t really looking at the facts of what we were actually doing. There was nothing we could say to them, like, “We’re helping process your claims. We’re sending advocates to court with you. We’ve got inspectors standing by to help you.”

Some of the cases were so old, and I knew that the way my predecessor [O’Malley] had previously handled them was inappropriate. There were people who were charged wrongfully, and we had to fix that, but folks didn’t understand that. They thought, “You changed the charges.” Well, we had to follow the evidence.

There were multiple cases where, if I could’ve sat down with the mother [of the victim] and said, “Let me walk you through how this case got here,” maybe she would have understood. I think they were so politicized at that point — certainly by November 2024 — that there was no rational conversation [to be had] with them. Their grievances were amplified in the media. If you had a grievance, you could get up and get on the news.

I watched the video the other day of my press conference with the family of Rachel Elizabeth Imani Buckner, which was, in my view, the most horrific domestic violence crime in this county, ever. She didn’t get the same media coverage because she was a Black woman. But when we prosecuted that case and successfully held the man who killed her accountable, the media did not cover that case. I stood on the steps of the courthouse with that family and about 25 of their supporters — and nobody covered that.

[Editor’s note: There was news coverage about the trial of Joseph Roberts, who was found guilty of second-degree murder, but some articles didn’t mention Price by name.]

I met with families when I could. I understand the new DA says she’s going to meet with every family and every victim of a violent crime. I hope the media holds her accountable to that promise.

Speaking of the new district attorney, there’s been some chatter about Jones Dickson reorganizing the Public Accountability Unit, which you created in 2023 to prosecute police officers and other public officials accused of misconduct. What have you heard about the new DA? And what are your thoughts on this “undoing” of your work?

I’ve heard that she’s fired more than 25 people. I’ve heard there have been a lot of folks who didn’t get the opportunity to make a case about why they were qualified for the position and why they were hired.

[Editor’s note: We reached out to Jones Dickson’s office asking her about the staffing changes Price mentioned and whether any of Price’s claims are true. The DA’s office told The Oaklandside in an email that Jones Dickson would not be able to respond to Price’s claims by our deadline.]

When we left, my biggest concern was the instability of the office. We hired 200 people, and not having the process of selecting the DA was traumatic for everybody in the office, not having a clear commitment from the incoming leader that she would not fire those people was unsettling for many people in the office.

I hired a great team of people. They’re very committed to working for the residents of Alameda County. We diversified that workforce tremendously, and we brought people in who live or were raised in Alameda County, so they’re natives here and actually of the community. So I hope that legacy will be respected.

Every DA has the right to set his or her policies. I had the right to do mine, even though people felt like they had the right to tell me that I couldn’t do it. The fact is that every district attorney has the right to decide how they want to organize the office.

In my first three months, we fired, maybe, three people. Compared to what’s happening here, we took a different approach. We didn’t come in with a sledgehammer saying, “We’re going to smash people. We’re going to undo everything.” We took our time. We did an office-wide survey. We talked to as many people as we could for the victim-witness advocates. We did individual surveys and individual conversations with each advocate, and got their recommendations and what they needed. I’m proud to say that everything they asked for, I gave it to them. We made it happen.

Before we adopted the special directive — the policy on sentencing and charging — we met with the charging deputy and looked at what they were using, how they had been trained, and what their standards were. Was there any consistency, and how were they being held accountable for their decision? So we took our time, and I think that’s the mature way and the best way to do it.

[Editor’s note: One of the first things Jones Dickson did was to repeal Price’s special directive. Price’s directive from early 2023 generally prohibited deputy DAs from using enhancements to add time to defendants’ sentences upon conviction of certain crimes.]

When you want to protect public safety, you have to evaluate what’s working and what’s not working. I certainly didn’t come in and say, “On Day 1, I’m going to sign this executive order and undo this.” I mean, it’s Trumpian, right? That’s not a proper way to manage an organization. But everybody’s different.

Have you had any conversations with Jones Dickson?

Once the recall passed, I made it clear to the county administrator that we would do our part to make sure there was a smooth transition. 

Chief Royl Roberts and I made ourselves available to any of the candidates who wanted to talk about what was happening in the office. I directed every unit supervisor and branch head to prepare a memorandum of the current status of their unit, what they needed, what their staffing was, and what their objectives were. I know that she had access to those reports after I left. They were dated because the process took so long, but at least there was an outline of what the office was doing and how it was organized.

To my knowledge, she has not reached out to me. She has her own counsel.

I will say the office that she left 13 years ago was very different from today’s office.

[Editor’s note: Jones Dickson was a prosecutor in the DA’s office from 1999 to 2013, before she became a superior court judge.]

Do you have any hopes, worries, fears, or anything else about the current DA’s administration?

Not per se. Public safety should always be at the forefront of any district attorney’s mind. I know it was at the forefront of my administration.

I think you have to evaluate that from a broad lens of, how do you protect public safety? There’s not one way to do anything, right? 

I think the climate in which the office now operates is very different. The Racial Justice Act is mandatory and has to be complied with. The resentencing laws have to be complied with. 

[Editor’s note: The Racial Justice Act, AB 2542, strengthened defendants’ ability to challenge convictions that may have been influenced by racial bias. The resentencing laws Price is referring to allow courts to resentence defendants to shorter terms if their prior sentence is found to be unduly harsh or not in the interest of justice.]

There’s now a push for restorative justice. All the laws for criminal justice reform that were passed in the last 15 years do apply to the Alameda County DA’s Office, and implementing those laws does require someone with a commitment to civil rights, police accountability, victims’ services, and making sure that the administration of justice is fair.

So that’s my hope: that they won’t go back to the days when the organization was dominated by white men and the DA turned a blind eye to police misconduct. I would hate to see our county go back to the days when people were excluded from juries based on their race or religion. 

Hopefully, we won’t go back there.

Can you say a little more about the reforms you’re talking about?

Yes. California has Proposition 57, which stops district attorneys from charging juveniles as adults. The data showed that it was mostly Black and brown juveniles who were being charged as adults.

When you look at LWOP — life without the possibility of parole sentences — in Alameda County, it’s a very racist application. I hope we won’t go back to that.

[Editor’s note: Price is correct that studies have found racial disparities in life without parole sentences, especially for Black juvenile defendants.]

That reminds me of Prop. 36, which critics say brings us back to the era of mass incarceration in California. What are your thoughts on that?

Prop. 36 has the danger of criminalizing drug addiction, and that would be extremely backward for a state like California.

I think people don’t realize the unintended impacts of public policies when they pass them. This goes back to your question about the victims who were praying for the recall — when you make public policy based on fear, pain or grief, it usually turns out bad.

Look at the Laken Riley Act. This young woman was brutally murdered, and based on people’s outrage, they wrote the Laken Riley Act. It’s bad public policy.

Having a recall before the DA actually has the chance to unpack her bags is also bad public policy. It has thrown the entire system in turmoil. It has set us back because whether we will ever get a chance to elect another district attorney is questionable.