A group of Contra Costa County crime victims and their families is proceeding with an effort to recall Contra Costa County District Attorney Diana Becton and plans to hold a press conference Saturday in Oakley.
The document notifying Becton of their notice to circulate a recall petition, which required 100 signatures of registered voters, was delivered Monday, according to the proponents’ Facebook page. The notice states that the group is “increasingly concerned about her continuous empty promises to victims and their families that justice will prevail while she permits criminals to roam free. Her lack of transparency regarding crime in this county and her attempts to keep offenders out of jail have left us disheartened. We stand for the residents of Contra Costa County because everyone deserves to live in a safe environment. We advocate for all crime victims who feel ignored, exasperated, and hopeless in their pursuit of justice for themselves or their loved ones. We support the business owners who endure constant thefts and burglaries from repeat offenders while Becton turns a blind eye.”
If the recall is successful, the petitioners, whose Recall District Attorney Diana Becton Facebook page has 2,000 followers and 1,500 likes, are asking that the Contra Costa County Board of Supervisors appoint someone to the position. She would become the third Bay Area district attorney ousted from office since 2022.
The Contra Costa County Elections Division oversees the complex recall process. The next step is for the proponents to get enough signatures to place the issue before voters in an upcoming election. They will need to gather signatures from 10% of Contra Costa County’s registered voters in 160 days. The Contra Costa County’s Registrar of Voters told Richmondside in December that there are about 729,500 registered voters in the county, so the recall team will need to gather, at minimum, about 73,000 signatures.
In a press release posted in September, the group indicated it is pursuing a recall because it thinks Becton hasn’t been open and honest and has been too lax when it comes to prosecuting those accused of crimes.
“We are frustrated by [Becton’s] continuous empty promises to victims and their families that justice will prevail while she permits criminals to roam free,” reads the press release. “Her lack of transparency regarding crime in this county and her attempts to keep offenders out of jail have left us disheartened.”
The recall team’s efforts come during a backlash against reform-minded Bay Area district attorneys. Since 2022, voters have removed San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin and Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price from office.
Voters ousted Boudin, who had run on a platform of reforms such as eliminating cash bail and reducing the number of people in prison for non-violent offenses, a little more than halfway through his term in 2022. About 55% of voters chose to remove Boudin.
Price, who was Alameda County’s first Black chief prosecutor, was recalled in the November election, with about 63% of voters voting to remove her. Like Boudin, Price ran on a reform platform that included ending the practice of charging juveniles as adults. She served less than two years and is now hosting a podcast.
Becton, who is Contra Costa County’s first Black and first woman chief prosecutor, has also pursued reforms during her tenure. She instituted diversion programs that seek rehabilitation instead of imprisonment for some low-level nonviolent crimes and obtained grants for juvenile diversion programs that she told the San Francisco Chronicle she intends to extend to offenders up to age 25.
Unlike Boudin and Price, Becton has had a long tenure. She worked as a judge in Contra Costa County Superior Court for more than 20 years before being appointed as the county’s district attorney in September 2017 following Mark Peterson’s decision to resign after admitting to using campaign funds for personal use. Since then, Becton has won two elections, one in 2018 and another in 2022.
Three Bay Area district attorneys targeted by recalls belong to prosecutor reform group
Boudin, Price and Becton all belong to the Prosecutors Alliance of California, the country’s first reform-minded law enforcement association. Its mission statement is to “improve the effectiveness, fairness, and compassion of their state and local prosecutorial systems.” Critics of Boudin, Price and Becton see this approach as soft on crime and blame them for perceived or actual increases in crime rates.
Available data from the U.S. Department of Justice shows mixed results as to whether crimes have increased or decreased under these reform-minded district attorneys. Under Boudin, data shows that reported violent and property crimes decreased significantly when compared to the years preceding his taking office.
Under Price, data covering 2023, her first year in office, shows that both reported violent and property crimes increased significantly from previous years. Department of Justice data covering the entire county for the present year, Price’s last year in office, is not yet available, but violent crime, particularly homicides, have been decreasing this year in Oakland, Alameda County’s biggest city, according to the city’s data.
Under Becton, the average rate of reported violent crime has gone up about 12% while property crime has gone down about 19%, according to Department of Justice data, when comparing the three full calendar years before she took office, 2014-16, to the five full calendar years after she took office, 2018-2023.
It’s unclear whether having a reform-minded chief prosecutor decreases or increases crime rates. One study published in 2022 that examined 65 major cities in the United States starting in 2015 suggests that having such a prosecutor did not affect the rate of homicides and larceny.
Richmond crime victims among families on recall website
The recall team’s website includes a section describing homicide victims in Contra Costa County, three of whom were from Richmond. It’s unclear if the families of these victims are involved with the recall effort, but some of them, including family members of Carmen Vasquez, Alexandrea Sweitzer, and Thomas Arellano, have been publicly critical of Becton and her team.
Grandchildren of Richmond resident Vasquez, an 84-year-old who was raped and killed in her home, criticized Becton’s office for not informing them before Freddie Lee Taylor, the person convicted of killing Vasquez, took a plea deal and was freed after serving 33 years in prison. Taylor, who has been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, brain damage, and borderline personality disorder, was offered the deal after a federal appeals court decision questioned his mental competency.
After being released, Taylor was accused of sexually assaulting a woman in Oklahoma, and the recall criticized Becton for this in a Facebook post, claiming, “Nowhere is safe from Diana Becton and her failed policies.”
Alexandrea Sweitzer’s mother, Melanie Sweitzer, has also criticized Becton for choosing not to challenge the constitutionality of a California law that required Contra Costa County Judge Barbara Hinton to limit the sentence of Vincent Lising-Campos, the person who pled no contest to killing Sweitzer, a 20-year-old Richmond resident. He received a seven-year sentence because he was 15 at the time of the killing.
Stephen Arellano, the father of Thomas Arellano, who lived in Martinez, filed a civil suit against Becton and her office this year in the Northern California District Court over the office’s handling of his son’s killing. Gerald Delgado took a manslaughter plea deal that sentenced him to 13 years for killing Thomas Arellano. The lawsuit, which Judge William Orrick dismissed, alleged that the office “failed to investigate and properly charge Delgado” and “failed to follow the wishes” of Stephen and other family members when entering into the plea deal.
Becton has seven days to file a response to the notice. Her PIO Ted Asregadoo said her response would be public and referred additional questions to her 2022 campaign manager.
Reporting by Richmondside freelancer Zac Haber was included in this article.
So where can the public sign this petition? I’d like to give them my John Hancock.
Spin Meister Sam Singer is involved in this campaign as a hired gun by the same right-wing interests who took down Boudin and Price. Now the neo-Nazi law enforcement organizations and the deep pocket right-wingers are going after Becton. Please cover that side of the story. These family’s suffering is being exploited by Singer to do an emotional, not a policy, based campaign.