Thomas Jensen Orloff is an American lawyer. He is the former

district attorney In the United States, a district attorney (DA), county attorney, state's attorney, prosecuting attorney, commonwealth's attorney, or state attorney is the chief prosecutor and/or chief law enforcement officer representing a U.S. state in a l ...

for

Alameda County, California Alameda County ( ) is a county located in the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 census, the population was 1,682,353, making it the 7th-most populous county in the state and 21st most populous nationally. The county seat is Oakland. Al ...

. Orloff began work in the DA's office after graduating from the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

for law in 1970, trying 25 murder cases before becoming Chief Assistant DA in 1989. When District Attorney Jack Meehan retired in 1994, Orloff ran unopposed for the position, and was reelected in unopposed elections in 1998, 2002, and 2006. On September 8, 2009, Orloff announced his intention to retire. He retired on September 18, 2009. Orloff's grandfather was a mayor of Pleasanton, where Orloff was born. Orloff's office found itself in the middle of controversy in early 2009 over its pending decision whether to charge a crime in the

BART Police shooting of Oscar Grant Oscar Grant III was a 22-year-old African-American man who was killed in the early morning hours of New Year's Day 2009 by BART Police Officer Johannes Mehserle in Oakland, California. Responding to reports of a fight on a crowded Bay Area Rapid ...

. Though Orloff charged Johannes Mehserle with

murder Murder is the unlawful killing of another human without justification (jurisprudence), justification or valid excuse (legal), excuse, especially the unlawful killing of another human with malice aforethought. ("The killing of another person wit ...

, some activists complained that he took too long to do so. Criminal law expert and

Boalt Hall The University of California, Berkeley, School of Law (commonly known as Berkeley Law or UC Berkeley School of Law) is the law school of the University of California, Berkeley, a public research university in Berkeley, California. It is one of ...

Law School Professor Franklin Zimring, however, called Orloff's office one of the "better departments" in the United States. Orloff unsuccessfully prosecuted the

Oakland Riders ''Delphine Allen et al. v. City of Oakland'' (or the Riders Case or Riders Scandal) was a civil rights lawsuit in Federal District Court regarding police misconduct in Oakland, California which has resulted in ongoing Federal oversight. Plaintif ...

police abuse case, dropping charges after two mistrials from hung juries.

References

External links

"Meet the DA" webpage
District attorneys in California UC Berkeley School of Law alumni Living people Year of birth missing (living people) People from Pleasanton, California {{US-law-bio-stub