Exclusive: He would be Sacramento’s first Black DA. ‘I’m going to be my own man’
Paris Coleman is not widely known in Sacramento but he will be starting now. The prosecutor will run for district attorney of Sacramento County next year and his candidacy has the endorsement of incumbent Anne Marie Schubert.
Schubert announced on April 26 that she was giving up her dream job as the two-term DA of her hometown to run for state attorney general next year.
Enter Coleman, who also grew up in Sacramento and has been a litigator and supervisor of young lawyers in the DA’s office since joining its ranks in January of 2015. Coleman said he envisioned himself climbing the organizational ladder eventually to do high-profile trials and he was essentially recruited to run for DA within the last six to seven weeks. He is a registered Democrat.
“I can’t say how people came to think or know that I would be a good candidate but I was approached and asked if it would be something I was interested in,” Coleman said in an exclusive interview with The Bee.
“It was not my belief that I would ever be running for DA or any political office. That is generally not my makeup or my personality but I’m happy I was approached.” Coleman said.
After he was approached, what followed were “very earnest” conversations with the current leadership in the DA’s office. He came to learn some things about how he was perceived in his office that he had not previously considered.
“My DA (Schubert) believes in me,” he said. “People that I worked with got in her ear and told her I would be excellent for the job. And from that point it took off.”
Schubert said that Coleman is the type of lawyer and person she feels the DA’s office will need when she steps aside next year.
“Paris Coleman will lead this office with dignity, fairness, grace and respect,” Schubert said Thursday. “He has the respect of the office and a breadth of experience as a prosecutor and a defense attorney.”
Would be first Black county DA
Coleman, 56, does have a varied and interesting set of experiences, both in the law and in his life.
But Coleman would also be a historical figure if elected. He would become the first Black person to serve as Sacramento County’s district attorney since the office was founded in 1849.
Schubert said she believes Coleman would be the first Black man to become the DA in a major California city if elected. According to the National Black Prosecutors Association, currently 45 Black men and women are chief prosecutors across the country. But no Black men are listed as DAs in California on the NBPA roster.
In the last decade, since the high-profile killings of Black men by police have spawned the Black Lives Matter movement, Coleman said he has “been called every name in the book” for being a Black prosecutor. He is undeterred.
“Being a prosecutor is a responsibility and I don’t think some people appreciate the weight of that responsibility,” Coleman said. “We struggle with it every single day, not feeling good about a case but knowing a crime was committed. Sometimes we resolve them because there are equities that make it hard for us prosecutors to push a case towards a jury. And there are times where we just have to do it. “
Though Coleman has worked in Sacramento’s DA office for six years, he is not one of Schubert’s two top lieutenants. Nor is he one of Schubert’s 11 assistant chief deputies running major crimes, forensics or investigations, among other units. Coleman has been a supervisor and mentor to younger lawyers in various departments of the DA’s office.
Coleman is known as a methodical litigator who was sent straight to doing trials as a new Sacramento DA when he joined the office. He said he bypassed having to prove himself first by handling preliminary hearings. Though he is not technically on Schubert’s management team, his role has been to supervise young DAs in various departments, including the adult sexual assault unit.
“My goal was to rise through the ranks and do these trials,” Coleman said. “Then go to gangs. Then go to homicide. I was due for a rotation and that’s what I would be doing if I wasn’t running for DA.”
When Schubert first ran for DA in 2014, she also wasn’t on the management team of her predecessor, Jan Scully. But Schubert had been in the Sacramento DA’s office for 18 years when she ran. She had closed some notorious cold cases with DNA evidence.
Support from law enforcement leaders
Coleman’s ascension has been faster and less heralded outside the community of law enforcement leaders. They believe he is the right person at the right time to be Sacramento’s DA.
Elk Grove Assemblyman Jim Cooper, a former veteran cop with the Sacramento County Deputy Sheriff’s department is endorsing Coleman. “The district attorney must be independent, strong-willed and dedicated to upholding the law and protecting victims,” he said. “Paris Coleman will bring all of these strengths, and more, to the job.”
In recent years, “progressive” DAs have taken over high-profile departments in Los Angeles and San Francisco. George Gascón, the Los Angeles DA, and Chesa Boudin, the San Francisco DA, have advocated for zero bail for certain offenses, not seeking the death penalty in any case, banning prosecutors from appearing at parole hearings and allowing far fewer sentencing enhancements.
Schubert was very critical of Gascón, and Boudin when she announced her run for state attorney general. And Coleman is not a big fan of the Gascón and Boudin.
“I can tell you I do not agree with what I have seen in San Francisco and Los Angeles,” Coleman said. “You cannot make (blanket policies) because every one of our cases is different. You have to recognize that you represent the people and you have to use those tools to represent the people. I’m going to be my own man.”
From Sacramento to Alameda and back
Coleman grew up in Sacramento and attended local public schools, graduating from John F. Kennedy High school in 1982. He attended community college locally before getting a business degree at Sacramento State and a law degree at UC Davis.
He began his legal career as a prosecutor with the Alameda County district attorney’s office.
For a time, Coleman commuted from his home in Sacramento to Oakland for his job. But in 2007 Coleman launched a private law career as a Sacramento-based criminal defense attorney. He mostly represented young defendants facing felony charges for violent crimes.
He climbed the ranks of defense attorneys in Sacramento. He said he was just below the top tier of highly paid lawyers who snagged the major cases because of their years of experience when he was recruited by Sacramento’s DA office in late 2014.
He started in January of 2015 on a particularly noteworthy day.
“My first day in the office was (Schubert’s) first day as DA,” he said.
On that day, he did not know how profoundly his life would later intersect with Schubert’s. As a 5-year-old, he had once told his great aunt that he wanted to be a lawyer when he grew up. But somewhere along the way, he said he lost confidence.
He was, by his account, just an OK student in high school. He said he played the saxophone in the JFK High School band. He was most interested in having fun with his friends in those years. He went to American River College and Rio Cosumnes College before transferring to Sacramento State. He thought business would be his calling, but the law became his purpose in life.
From being recruited to run for DA, to being recruited for the Sacramento DA’s office, to going to law school, those seminal decisions were always suggested to him by someone else after he had made other plans. But Coleman had the ability to listen and to recognize critical moments in his life when they presented themselves.
He has built a beautiful life for himself with his wife Toni, an engineer, and their three children. Unlike some people in his position, Coleman does not view his life’s achievements arrogantly.
“When I go out and talk to kids, they ask me about my profession and I say, ‘Look. If I can do it , you can do it,’” he said. “I didn’t have that growing up. That little push, that little nudge that can turn things around. I have nothing to regret. I’m happy where I am, happy with my life. You just never know what little bit it could take to turn someone in a slightly different direction.”
This story was originally published April 30, 2021 at 5:00 AM.
