Sacramento election results: Thien Ho ahead of Alana Mathews in race for district attorney

Veteran Sacramento prosecutor Thien Ho had a strong lead early Wednesday in his race against Alana Mathews to become Sacramento’s next district attorney.

In results posted just after midnight, Ho had 59.01% of the vote to Mathews’ 40.99% in early returns from the county, and a margin of more than 17,360 votes.

“I think the results are putting us in a position to win,” Ho said shortly before 9 p.m. Tuesday. “The community has spoken. They want an experienced prosecutor, they want someone who’s going to put safety before politics.

“We are looking forward to building a safe community for everyone.”

Ho was the better known of the two candidates, with two decades as a prosecutor handling some of the highest profile cases in the Sacramento D.A.’s office, most notably his prosecution of Golden State Killer/East Area Rapist Joseph James DeAngelo.

He had the backing of incumbent District Attorney Anne Marie Schubert, law enforcement unions, retired judges and Republican and Democratic elected officials.

Ho, who came to the United States as a refugee from Vietnam in 1976 as a 4-year-old, ran as the more seasoned candidate in the race, emphasizing his experience and judgment as he handled nearly 100 trials.

He said he would favor death penalty prosecutions in some cases, a sharp difference from Mathews, who said she opposed death penalty prosecutions.

Ho also insisted he would not hesitate to charge law enforcement officers with a crime if they were found to have acted improperly in an officer-involved shooting or other incident, a criticism that had been leveled at Schubert over her refusal to file charges in the shooting deaths by police of Joseph Mann and Stephon Clark.

Ho managed to raise twice as much campaign cash as Mathews, with support from law enforcement unions, while Mathews said she would not accept contributions from such groups because it could pose a conflict of interest.

Mathews, who spent eight years in the Sacramento D.A.’s office, presented herself as someone who could bring a new approach to the D.A.’s office, touting her experience as an adjunct law professor, legislative consultant and gubernatorial appointee to the California Energy Commission.

She criticized Schubert for the fact that the incumbent D.A. had never filed charges in any officer-involved shooting, and said she would have sought prosecution of Sacramento police officers in the 2016 shooting death of Joseph Mann.

Mann, a Black man who was having mental issues and wielding a knife, was shot to death by Sacramento police officers in an incident that led to the retirement of one and the firing of the other, as well as a $719,000 payout by the city to Mann’s father.

This story was originally published June 7, 2022 at 8:35 PM.