OAKLAND — The Alameda County District Attorney’s Office plans to subpoena its own former prosecutors over their handling of the case against Jason Fletcher, the former San Leandro police officer charged with manslaughter in the 2020 death of Steven Taylor.
The plan — aired by the head of the office’s Public Integrity Division during a hearing Friday morning — could lead to the unusual prospect of sitting prosecutors questioning their own former colleagues over multiple alleged misdeeds. The subpoenas would likely target Zachary Linowitz, who previously oversaw the case under former District Attorney Pamela Price, as well as a colleague, James Conger, according to court testimony.
It all comes as a judge weighs a request by Fletcher’s attorneys to dismiss the case, amid claims that Linowitz acted “unethically” while seeking experts to testify on Fletcher’s use of lethal force more than five years ago. The bid to end the prosecution has faced little pushback from Alameda County District Attorney Ursula Jones Dickson’s office, which has repeatedly voiced its own concerns about the case in recent months.
Linowitz has vehemently denied the claims in the past, calling them “100% false,” and part of “a corrupt playbook in order to ensure that police prosecutions fail.”
Taylor was fatally shot on April 18, 2020, while trying to steal an aluminum baseball bat and a tent from a San Leandro Walmart. Only about 40 seconds passed between the time Fletcher encountered Taylor, 33, and when the fatal shot was fired, according to a lawsuit against the city of San Leandro by the slain man’s family.
The decision by former District Attorney Nancy O’Malley to file the manslaughter charge was notable, given how it marked the first prosecution of a law enforcement officer in the Bay Area over an on-duty death of a civilian since BART Officer Johannes Mehserle was charged with the fatal shooting of Oscar Grant on New Year’s Day 2009.
Last month, Fletcher’s attorney asked Reardon to throw out the case, claiming it had been undone by “underhandedness” by Linowitz. The attorney, Michael Rains, claimed the prosecutor “deliberately suppressed” opinions from multiple experts who thought the officer’s actions were justified and legal, and “misled the community into believing this was a crime when it was not.”
On Friday, Rains claimed in open court that Conger, a former prosecutor, was allegedly found trying to shred “a number of documents” related to one of the experts. Rains also questioned the use of ordering Conger and Linowitz to court for questioning, amid concerns that their testimony would “not be trustworthy,” and that they may opt not to speak amid the potential for criminal prosecution by Dickson’s office.
Assistant District Attorney Casey Bates said he shared Rains’ concerns about the former prosecutors’ credibility. But he wanted to exhaust every chance to learn about how the case was handled, noting that “we don’t know the extent of the opinions that were solicited by the prior administration.”
A message sent by this news outlet to Conger was not immediately returned.
Any testimony would likely happen on Nov. 14, when the case returns to court.
On Friday, Alameda County Superior Court Judge Thomas Reardon appeared visibly frustrated at the plodding nature of the case, questioning why “nobody followed my suggestions” during a prior hearing that might have avoided the need for the pending subpoenas.
After the hearing, Taylor’s grandmother expressed her own anger at how the district attorney’s office has handled the case. She suggested that Jones Dickson’s administration “does not want to deal with this case,” and would be “happy” to see the case dismissed. She added flatly: “The DA is not doing their job.”
The grandmother, Addie Kitchen, complained that she had not received enough updates from Bates and the district attorney’s office. And she called the wait for a trial — currently scheduled for January, nearly six years after Taylor’s death — a deeply frustrating experience.
“Give it to the jury, let the jury make a decision,” Kitchen said.
