Who is Pamela Price? Oakland DA offers controversial plea deal to triple murderer, reduces jail term from 75 to 15 years
OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA: An infamous Oakland gang member who is accused of killing three people had his sentence reduced from a 75-to-life term to just 15 years. The notorious gangster was only 18 years old when he reportedly gunned down three people, including a potential witness to another shooting.
Delonzo Logwood, 31, will plead no-contest to voluntary manslaughter and personal use of a gun, thanks to woke Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price, who offered the plea deal.
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Who is Delonzo Logwood?
Delonzo Logwood was only 18 years old when he was arrested for gunning down three people in 2008. He was charged with murdering Eric Ford, 22, Zaire Washington, 24, and Richard Carter, 30, in separate Oakland shootings in 2008. The charges for two of the murders have allegedly been dropped as part of the plea, according to Local News Matters.
What is judge's response to Pamela Price's plea deal?
Alameda County Superior Court Judge Mark McCannon said he needed more time to consider whether he would sign off given the unusual nature of the terms and drastically reduced sentence, as per San Francisco Chronicle.
Pamela Price issued a statement where she wrote that the Logwood case is a "difficult case by any measure." "Given the state of the evidence and the age of the cases, our office concluded it was in the interest of justice to resolve the prosecution of Logwood with a plea to multiple crimes in connection with the murder of Eric Ford," she wrote. Logwood has been imprisoned since 2009 and "will serve additional years under the plea deal" from Santa Rita jail where he's been since 2015.
A statement from DA Pamela Y. Price on the Logwood case: pic.twitter.com/PrLBskWumS
— AlCo DA's Office (@AlamedaCountyDA) February 11, 2023
It now remains to be seen if he has to serve extra 15 years or if he would be released within the year, given that he has already served 14 years. "Contrary to critical comment from the bench, Logwood has expressed extreme remorse for his behavior as a teenager and readily agreed to publicly apologize to the families impacted by his demeanor and to the residents of Alameda County," the statement continued.
McCannon said that he would approve the proposed plea deal for Logwood as of now but made it very clear that he needs to be more convincing before his final order. "I haven't seen any remorse. I've never seen a case pled down like this before," said the former prosecutor who was appointed to the bench in 2013. "I know he was young at the time, but I'm going to have to hear that he's matured and that he has changed his ways."
Price continued to say that the main motive is to "stop violence" in the community adding that the "killing must stop."
Who is Pamela Price?
Pamela Price who negotiated the deal for Logwood was chosen after promising to give younger defenders a break. The attorney is associated with a national movement of progressives attempting to reduce mass imprisonment and push for reforms at the county level by seeking to prosecutor seats.
The progressive attorney also claimed that she would help resentence people who are facing life without parole and to prosecute police misconduct. After taking office, one of the first actions that she took was to reopen investigations for eight police shootings and in-custody deaths, which even included two cases more than a decade old.
In 2022, she became Alameda County's first BLACK district attorney after defeating her moderate opponent.
What are Logwood's crimes?
The controversial plea was severely criticised by the victims' families who told Local News Matters that Price is "not listening" to them and is "too soft on crime." Logwood was allegedly a part of the Ghost Town gang which is a subset of the P-Team gang, according to testimony by Oakland police Acting Captain Tony Jones in 2018.
He was charged along with Dijon Holifield, 30, with five homicides between them over a period of 45 days in 2008. Records show that Holifield was only 17 years old when he was prosecuted in juvenile court.
Prosecutors also connected the pair to several other violent crimes, including the nonfatal shooting of a potential witness and a series of armed carjackings. Washington was fatally shot on June 30, 2008. He'd been scheduled to testify against Logwood's half-brother in an unrelated shooting case three weeks after the day of his death.