By David M. Greenwald
Executive Editor
Pleasanton, CA – Incumbent DA Diana Becton of Contra Costa County met with her challenger Mary Knox on Tuesday for a candidates forum hosted by Gina Channell Wilcox and Jeremy Walsh of the Pleasanton Weekly.
Becton, a Costa Costa Superior Court Judge for 22 years, was appointed as DA and then in 2018 won support of the voters. Mary Knox has worked as a prosecutor for 37 years in the DA’s office after graduating from Pepperdine Law School.
Question: Property theft crimes are at the forefront for many residents these days—smash and grab incidents, ransacking and raiding businesses. catalytic converter thefts in particular seem to be more and more prevalent and a true disruption to quality of life. How will you choose to prosecute those and other property thefts over the next four years? Take us into your decision making mindset at the local level and any effort you might consider to advocate changes to state law in this area
Mary Knox: “In 2018, when I returned to doing property crimes in the felony filing for the central and Eastern part of our county, I was shocked to see how the organized retail theft was spinning out of control in our county, and with no accountability for the criminals. So I began to work with other organized retail theft investigators. This has become a regional problem with thieves coming into our county and also hitting other counties. So we worked collaboratively to identify these crews and then identify the county that would be the most effective as the prosecuting agency. And we’ve expanded this.”
Diana Becton: “So with the organized retail theft and the smash and grabs, we all know that Contra Costa county certainly made history in 2021, when we had 90 individuals storm into the Nordstrom simultaneously and then exiting the same way with merchandise and also harming people within the store. Immediately, I was on the phone and on the Zoom and in meetings with district attorneys up and down the state of California. We realize that those who are committing these crimes are organized and that we have to be organized as well. So up and down the state with the district attorney’s office in Santa Clara, in San Joaquin, on up to Alameda and San Mateo, including, um, going north as well, we have partnered not only with our resources, but we are partnering with law enforcement.” She added, “Those who have been apprehended by law enforcement have been charged with serious crimes, including organized retail, theft, and robbery for their crimes. And they’re proceeding as we speak through the justice system so that they will be held accountable.”
Question: The district attorney’s office plays a significant role in incarceration levels on both ends before trial and after conviction. What steps, if any, can be taken to safely reduce the rate pretrial incarceration in Contra Costa County? And what are your views on drug diversion and other restorative justice programs?
Diana Becton: “Let me start first with our juveniles, because I think, um, that is one of the places where we begin the pipeline that leads our kids into the criminal justice system. So in addition to prevention and having a prosecutor who’s working every day with our schools and educating our kids about various crimes, I have secured a million dollar grant so that we are working on a program called RESTORE. It is a restorative justice program. It is victim centered, so that victims’ voices are heard. Our youth are held accountable, but they’re also getting an assessment and the services that they need so that they can thrive and be productive members of our community.”
She continued, “Also on the adult side, I have established several diversion programs, including a drug diversion program, so we can get people into treatment and reduce our footprint there. And then we also have just launched our neighborhood restorative partnership, so that a number of the low level nonviolent offenses can be heard by people in our community.”
Mary Knox: “I believe that pretrial incarceration is appropriate, particularly with recidivist offenders. And this has been particularly important with the property crimes and the organized retail theft. While I was doing felony filing, I would have people with arrests on their rap sheets from literally eight to 10 different counties, and this recycling, this catch and release of criminals who then just continue to commit crimes that needs to stop. So there needs to be an intelligent assessment of people’s ability to reoffend their criminal history, and also an assessment of the numbers of cases they have pending throughout Northern California.”
She continued, “With regard to diversion, diversion is at actually a legal term that has a definition in the penal code. And it refers to the situation where someone is diverted after people are charged with a crime, because our legislature recognizes that there are some crimes and some addictions that 100% there has to be oversight and accountability in order to keep people, for example, in drug treatment, it’s a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of addiction to believe that a true drug addict is going to go into drug treatment and be successful—he will fail three or four or five different times. And so there needs to be court intervention to have effective diversion through drug treatment.”
Question: The two fatal shootings involving now former Sheriff’s Deputy Andrew Hall in Danville have received a lot, a lot of attention, certainly in our coverage area. While we understand the second case remains under investigation, the first obviously led to criminal charges and a conviction by a jury. What has been learned from those incidents and their outcomes? Do you feel enough is being done to hold officers accountable for excessive use of force or misconduct? What, if any, changes can be made?
Mary Knox: “I’m actually on our law enforcement fatal incident review team. So I’m on call for two weeks at a time. And I go out on these fatal incidents and I do that because I think it’s really essential that the public, as well as all of the involved parties have a transparent and fair investigation of these incidents. And I was not involved in the investigation regarding the first shooting involving Officer Hall. I was not the assigned prosecutor. So it would be irresponsible of me to comment on that filing. But I do know that the extensive delay in the filing of charges prohibited the public and all the involved parties from having decisions made at a point in time that were, um, effective and also it denied all of these parties, the opportunity to have transparency. These investigations have to be done swiftly and they have to be transparent.”
Diana Becton: “We’ve actually done a true tremendous amount of work, and I would say a 360 degree turnaround in the district attorney’s office to investigate these cases. We have a protocol in Contra Costa County that all of the law enforcement agencies have signed onto, which requires the district attorney’s office when there’s an officer involved shooting, especially those resulting in fatalities to investigate those cases. We are doing co-investigations along with the agencies, but we are coming to our own independent conclusions with respect to criminality. When I came into this work, the first thing that I did was announce a new policy that was back in 2018, that our investigation would be transparent so that I promised to file in every single case, which was never done before a public report so that the public can review our decision, making those reports by the way, are found on our website.”
She added, “We did hold Officer Hall accountable, the charges were filed. And when those charges were filed, a jury determined that this officer was guilty and a judge sentenced him to prison. Despite not wanting to take an opinion here, my opponent has taken a public position to say, even though this person has been convicted by a jury, that she would not have filed the charges in this case.”
Mary Knox in a rebuttal said, “I have never taken a public stance on the charging of Officer Hall. Dan Bornstein asked me throughout an endorsement interview, Ms. Becton was present on the Zoom, whether or not I could express an opinion about the filing of the charges. And I repeatedly told Mr. Borenstein that no, I could not because I was not involved in the investigation nor was I the prosecutor. So it would be irresponsible of me to express an opinion since I did not know all the facts. Mr. Borenstein then asked me based on the facts that do know, what would you have done? And I said, based on the fact that I do know that all nine shots were fired within two seconds, that I question whether or not it would be even physically possible for Officer Hall to take his finger off the trigger. And so, based on those facts that I did know, the filing did not seem appropriate, but I have never taken a stance that I did not concur with filing.”
Becton responded: “I think that’s directly contradicted by the newspaper article, endorsing me as the candidate for reform. Mr. Borenstein, it tells it in the article that he explicitly asked that question, would you have charged Officer Hall and Ms. Knox explicitly answered, ‘No, I would not have. I would not have filed the charges based on this idea that, um, he fired and could not pull his finger off the trigger,’ and also went on to state that there was a single shot, the first one that killed him, she gave very detailed reasons why she would not. Then she was asked whether she would, did she watch the video? And she admitted that she had not. And when pressed, and she said ‘well, I don’t know anything about the case,’ but the fact of the matter is, is that she did explicitly tell Mr. Borenstein that she would not have filed the charges.”
