Ernest Dykes, who served 31 years in prison for a fatal shooting he said was unintentional, filed a federal lawsuit Tuesday accusing the Alameda County District Attorney’s office of violating his right to a fair trial, according to the Oaklandside. A second former inmate whose conviction was also vacated last year after prosecutors admitted misconduct filed a separate lawsuit with similar allegations, the news outlet reported.
Dykes’ lawsuit alleges that during his 1995 trial, prosecutor Colton Carmine used a peremptory challenge to strike the only Black person who had been considered for a seat on the jury. Dykes, who is Black, contends that the exclusion violated his constitutional right to a fair trial before a jury drawn from a representative cross-section of the community.
According to the lawsuit, Dykes acknowledges that he shot and killed nine-year-old Lance Clark while attempting to rob the boy’s grandmother. He maintained the death was unintentional. The suit claims Carmine disregarded Dykes’ apparent remorse and his minimal prior criminal record when charging him with first-degree murder and seeking the death penalty. Dykes was convicted and sentenced to death, spending most of the next three decades on Death Row at San Quentin State Prison.
Last year, the Alameda County District Attorney’s office conceded that prosecutorial misconduct had occurred in Dykes’ case. A judge subsequently vacated the murder conviction and resentenced Dykes on the lesser charge of voluntary manslaughter. The lawsuit now seeks damages for the alleged violation of his fair-trial rights. Attorneys for Dykes argued that the DA’s office had fostered an environment in which prosecutors “sought to rig juries” to enhance the office’s reputation for toughness, according to the Oaklandside.
The second lawsuit was filed by a former inmate whose conviction was also overturned last year amid findings of misconduct by the same office. Details of that case were not immediately available in court records cited by the Oaklandside.