Tierra Bradford: Zappala’s plea deal folly reinforces need for audit of DA's office

On June 2, news broke that Allegheny County District Attorney Stephen Zappala sent an email to his office prohibiting staff from offering plea deals to the clients of defense attorney Milton Raiford. This email was sent several days after Raiford made remarks, on the record, about how the district attorney’s office was “systematically racist.” During his remarks, Raiford specifically spoke about the unreasonable plea deals being offered to his clients and Black defendants in general.

The news left legal experts, elected officials and community leaders in an uproar, some going as far as calling for Zappala’s resignation due to unethical behavior and what is a clear infringement upon Raiford’s constitutional right to free speech. The ACLU of Pennsylvania called on the Disciplinary Board of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania and Attorney General Josh Shapiro to launch formal investigations, a request we stand by.

This troubling incident points to a larger problem in the district attorney’s office. Namely, there is no known internal analysis of the policies and practices taking place in the Allegheny County District Attorney’s office and certainly nothing available to the public. That must change.

After the story broke, Zappala rescinded his initial order and replaced it with a policy that applies to his office’s interaction with all defense attorneys and defendants. The new policy states that assistant district attorneys shall bring any concerns of racial discrimination in plea agreements alleged by defense attorneys and defendants to the supervising deputy district attorney. While this response is a more appropriate reaction to Raiford’s claims of systematic racism in the district attorney’s office, it’s nowhere near enough and does not fix the damage done by Zappala’s initial policy directed at Raiford and his clients.

District attorneys are some of the most powerful people in the criminal legal system. Zappala’s actions will likely discourage defense attorneys from speaking out about bias and racism in Zappala’s office in the future, and from offering other legitimate criticisms of the office.

Since Zappala’s new policy leaves the burden of calling out systematically racist practices in the DA’s office on defense attorneys and defendants, those who wish to level criticism at his office are left in a no-win situation.

In 2016, the University of Pittsburgh Institute of Politics released a report that included recommendations for reforming the criminal legal system in Allegheny County. The report examines the negative impact that initial charging decisions can have in individual cases and how the practice of overcharging — the filing of more serious charges in order to provide leverage in dealing with defendants — is a driving factor of mass incarceration. The report specifically states that “it is important for the Allegheny County District Attorney’s office to track charging decisions and the reasons behind them.”

Despite this recommendation, the public doesn’t have any data related to the practices happening in the district attorney’s office at present time. What we do know is that Raiford is not the first or only person who has voiced serious concerns about the district attorney’s office engaging in systematically racist practices.

Zappala has said that he wants “to ensure that this office makes consistent, evidence-based decisions, and avoids false claims of racism.” If that’s true, then the district attorney’s office should work on gathering data about the practices in their office and providing it to a third party, like the Institute of Politics at the University of Pittsburgh, to analyze and create a report that can be released to the public.

From there, Zappala must make a meaningful commitment toward addressing any issues of harmful and systemically racist practices in the district attorney’s office.

It is time for Zappala to commit to real criminal legal reform and transparency in his office. Allegheny County deserves nothing less.

Tierra Bradford is the criminal justice policy advocate at the ACLU of Pennsylvania.