Two Former Death-Sentenced Californians Seek Compensation Over Official Misconduct

Two for­mer California death-sen­tenced pris­on­ers, Ernest Dykes and Curtis Ervin, have filed law­suits against Alameda County, accus­ing the District Attorney’s office of ​“set[ting] out to rig the juries” in their cap­i­tal cas­es. Both men were released from prison after their death sen­tences were reduced because of the dis­cov­ery of uncon­sti­tu­tion­al pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al mis­con­duct dur­ing each of their jury selec­tions in the 1990s. The law­suits allege that the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office (ACDAO) had a long-stand­ing prac­tice of engag­ing in racial dis­crim­i­na­tion dur­ing jury selec­tion in cap­i­tal cas­es. ​“The evi­dence shows that the errors were com­mit­ted know­ing­ly and not in iso­la­tion, but rather, borne from the prod­uct of a pat­tern and prac­tice rein­forced by those with super­vi­so­ry author­i­ty with­in the ACDAO,” the suits state. Both law­suits accuse the ACDAO of vio­lat­ing the men’s right to a fair tri­al by uncon­sti­tu­tion­al­ly remov­ing and pre­vent­ing Jewish and Black jurors from sit­ting on their juries. Both men are seek­ing com­pen­sa­tion for pain and suf­fer­ing, as well as punitive damages.

In 2024, U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria found ​“strong evi­dence” of a ​“pat­tern of seri­ous mis­con­duct” and ordered then-Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price to review near­ly three dozen cap­i­tal cas­es. Following Judge Chhabria’s rul­ing, DA Price pub­licly acknowl­edged her office’s his­tor­i­cal prac­tice of strik­ing Jewish and Black jurors, telling the media, “[t]he evi­dence that we have uncov­ered sug­gests plain­ly that peo­ple did not receive a fair tri­al in Alameda County and as a result,” her office had to review the cap­i­tal cas­es in ques­tion. DA Price said that this evi­dence was ​“not lim­it­ed to one or two pros­e­cu­tors, but a vari­ety of prosecutors.”

“Curtis Ervin and Ernest Dykes lost decades of their lives, but it’s not just them who are threat­ened by this kind of behav­ior. It’s all the peo­ple liv­ing in Alameda County; every­one is threat­ened by a DA’s office that thinks this kind of dis­crim­i­na­tion was OK.” — Brian Pomerantz, attor­ney for both Mr. Ervin and Mr. Dykes

The cas­es also illus­trate a cost of the death penal­ty that is rarely includ­ed in the dis­cus­sions of cap­i­tal punishment’s finan­cial bur­den.

In April 2024, Alameda County pros­e­cu­tors dis­cov­ered index cards in Mr. Dykes’ case that revealed pros­e­cu­tors’ uncon­sti­tu­tion­al efforts to sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly exclude poten­tial jurors based on their race and reli­gion. One Black female prospec­tive juror who was exclud­ed was described as a ​“Short, Fat, Troll.” Notes about anoth­er Black woman stat­ed, ​“Says race is no issue, but I don’t believe her.” Jewish prospec­tive jurors were sim­i­lar­ly exclud­ed. On one note­card for a white male, the pros­e­cu­tor not­ed that he ​“like[d] him bet­ter than any oth­er Jew, but no way.”

Mr. Dykes, who admits his guilt for the crime for which he was con­vict­ed, spent over 30 years on death row before being resen­tenced in August 2024 due to the pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al mis­con­duct dur­ing his jury selection and was released in August 2025. His law­suit states, “[b]ut for [Alameda] County’s uncon­sti­tu­tion­al con­duct, even if con­vict­ed of the [less­er] charges [for which he was resen­tenced], Mr. Dykes would have been released from prison on or about August 7, 2009, and would have nev­er been on death row.” This means ​“Mr. Dykes was incar­cer­at­ed for at least 15 years, 8 months, and 15 days longer than he should have been.” Seeking dam­ages for his suf­fer­ing dur­ing ​“years of unlaw­ful incar­cer­a­tion” which ​“depriv[ed] him of his free­dom and ade­quate access to fam­i­ly and loved ones, con­fined dai­ly to a small cell that weighed on his men­tal and phys­i­cal health for at least 20 hours each day, and denied ade­quate health­care and nutri­tion,” Mr. Dykes has asked the court to order Alameda County to pay him $32 mil­lion in com­pen­sa­tion for harms faced and an addi­tion­al $250 mil­lion in punitive damages.

During Mr. Ervin’s jury selec­tion, three Black men and six Black women were struck from the jury pool, which left just one Black man on the jury and one as an alter­nate. Mr. Ervin’s law­suit notes that ​“every Black woman who made it to the jury box was excused.” The suit also notes that the tri­al pros­e­cu­tors ​“used reli­gion as pre­text to jus­ti­fy his race-based peremptory challenges.”

Mr. Ervin, who has long main­tained his inno­cence, spent 33 years on death row before the ACDAO con­ced­ed that tri­al pros­e­cu­tors engaged in uncon­sti­tu­tion­al dis­crim­i­na­tion dur­ing jury selec­tion, and he was resen­tenced on less­er charges in August 2024. He was released from prison in August 2025, after near­ly 39 years behind bars. According to his law­suit, “[b]ut for the [Alameda] County’s uncon­sti­tu­tion­al con­duct, Mr. Ervin would have been released from prison on May 18, 2000, and would have nev­er been on death row.” This means ​“Mr. Ervin was incar­cer­at­ed for 25 years, 3 months, and 7 days longer than he should have been.” Like Mr. Dykes, Mr. Ervin seeks com­pen­sa­tion for his suf­fer­ing dur­ing his incar­cer­a­tion. Mr. Ervin has asked the court to order Alameda County to pay him $40 mil­lion in com­pen­sa­tion for harms faced and an addi­tion­al $250 mil­lion in punitive damages.

The cas­es also illus­trate a cost of the death penal­ty that is rarely includ­ed in the dis­cus­sions of cap­i­tal punishment’s finan­cial bur­den. Compensation claims are com­mon­ly asso­ci­at­ed with exon­er­a­tions, but nei­ther Mr. Dykes nor Mr. Ervin has been exon­er­at­ed. Instead, both men con­tend that uncon­sti­tu­tion­al dis­crim­i­na­tion dur­ing jury selec­tion led to decades of unlaw­ful incar­cer­a­tion beyond the sen­tences they oth­er­wise would have served.

Both law­suits allege that it was stan­dard, unwrit­ten prac­tice in the ACDAO between 1980 and 2012 to inten­tion­al­ly exclude Black and Jewish jurors from cap­i­tal juries. ​“The ACDAO’s his­to­ry of dis­crim­i­na­to­ry and uncon­sti­tu­tion­al con­duct, dis­pensed by design through delib­er­ate mis­train­ing of its employ­ees, par­tic­u­lar­ly in cap­i­tal cas­es involv­ing spe­cial cir­cum­stance pros­e­cu­tions, is clear from a review of its cas­es,” each law­suit states. ​“ACDAO pros­e­cu­tors deter­mined that Black and Jewish jurors were unfa­vor­able to them and set out to elim­i­nate mem­bers of those two race/​ethnicities from their juries. Thus, the ACDAO rou­tine­ly and as a mat­ter of office-wide prac­tice, used peremp­to­ry strikes to elim­i­nate Black and Jewish jurors from ser­vice based on their race and/​or eth­nic­i­ty,” the suits outline.

The last per­son put to death in California was Clarence Ray Allen in 2006. Two decades lat­er, California’s death row pop­u­la­tion has fall­en below 580 pris­on­ers, down from its peak near 750 in the mid-2010s. In the time since Mr. Allen’s exe­cu­tion, the death penal­ty in California has seen sus­tained scruti­ny as con­cerns with racial dis­crim­i­na­tion, inno­cence, and costs con­tin­ue to grow. Governor Gavin Newsom placed a mora­to­ri­um on exe­cu­tions in 2019, death-sen­tenced pris­on­ers have been moved to less restric­tive con­di­tions in gen­er­al pop­u­la­tion, and advo­cates have urged the gov­er­nor to grant mass clemency.

Source: DPIC, Hayley Bedard, June 29, 2026

"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted."
— Oscar Wilde

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