While she’ll only serve as interim DA for potentially two years, current Alameda County Superior Court Judge Ursula Jones Dickson will now take over for Pamela Price after the November recall, and recall crowd favorite Annie Esposito will be her second in command.
The recall of Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao set off a complex series of brief appointments and a slightly longer appointment and will eventually be determined by an April 15 special election for the job. Not so with the East Bay’s simultaneous recall of Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price, a more cut-and-dry process where the Alameda County Board of Supervisors voted to name a new DA, who will serve for one and a half to two years until a normal election is held in 2026.
#Breaking Alameda County has a new DA. Board of Supervisors votes to appoint Judge Ursula Jones Dickson as new District Attorney. @KTVU pic.twitter.com/jIJfjeynXE
— Jana Katsuyama (@JanaKTVU) January 29, 2025
And KTVU reports those supervisors voted to appoint Alameda County Superior Court Judge Ursula Jones Dickson to the position at their Tuesday night meeting. The board considered seven candidates altogether, and the Chronicle adds that they eventually appointed Judge Jones Dickson after three rounds of voting at the meeting.
In her remarks to the board, Jones Dickson criticized the recalled Price, saying “she was more of an activist than a district attorney,” according to KTVU. “Although I respect her convictions, they’re not mine,” she added. “I’m here to do a job, and as a judge, you have to be fair and impartial. You have to make sure you keep the law first, and this is a victim-centered process. It will be under my office going forward.”
The group that organized Price’s recall, Save Alameda For Everyone (SAFE), had backed Jones Dickson and Contra Costa County Assistant District Attorney Annie Esposito. Both Jones Dickson and Esposito had said they would hire the other as their top assistant DA if appointed, and indeed, Jones Dickson said after the vote that she would bring on Esposito to that position.
Ursula Jones Dickson served as a prosecutor in the Alameda County DAs office from 1998 to 2013, and was then appointed to the county’s Superior Court bench in 2013.
The vote was not a runaway majority by any means. But after a third round of voting, Jones Dickson had three votes (Supervisors David Haubert, Elisa Marquez, and Nate Miley) while Supervisor Lena Tam voted for Esposito, and new Supervisor Nikki Fortunado Bas chose Rob Bonta’s state-level Chief Deputy Attorney General Venus Johnson.
Jones Dickson is expected to be sworn in on Tuesday, February 4.
And she gets the job until 2026. The county has not posted whether this will be the June 2, 2026 primary election, or the November 3, 2026 general election. And at that point, Judge Jones Dickson would of course have the option of running again.
Related: DA Pamela Price Concedes, Accepts That She Has Been Recalled [SFist]
Image: Tuan Anh via Facebook