County nears $4.9M settlement with family
Announcement comes a day after a jury convicted sheriff’s deputy of felony assault
Contra Costa County is negotiating a $4.9 million settlement with the family of Laudemer Arboleda, the mentally ill Newark man who was shot dead nearly three years ago by a sheriff’s deputy in Danville, the family’s attorney said Wednesday.
The announcement came a day after jury convicted sheriff’s deputy Andrew Hall of felony assault with a firearm in Arboleda’s death, while failing to reach a verdict on the more serious charge of voluntary manslaughter. Prosecutors are still weighing whether they will refile the manslaughter charge against the deputy — a decision that proved highly controversial within the local district attorney’s office just six months ago.
The Contra Costa County Board of Supervisors has “authorized its attorneys to negotiate a settlement agreement for $4.9 million, inclusive of attorneys’ fees and costs,” according to Susan Shiu, a county spokeswoman. A finalized agreement has not yet been put before the county Board of Supervisors for a vote.
The family’s attorney, John Burris, hailed the tentative settlement, but said it still came with a measure of grief.
“The settlement in and of itself doesn’t make anyone whole — certainly doesn’t make the family whole,” Burris said. “The message it should send is that a human life is significant and that if you take it wrongfully, which we believe, then a significant amount of money should be paid.”
The jury’s decision and the pending settlement push Contra Costa County into unprecedented territory when it comes to allegations of officer misconduct.
The verdict marked the first felony conviction of a law enforcement officer in Contra Costa County over an on-duty police shooting. Hall faces up to 17 years in prison when he is sentenced in January for the November 2018 shooting.
Contra Costa County Superior Court Judge Terri Mockler declared a mistrial Tuesday on the more serious voluntary manslaughter charge after the jury foreperson said the panel was
“hopelessly deadlocked” 7-5. Mockler expressly forbid the foreperson from revealing in the courtroom which way the scale was tipping.
If approved, the settlement also would be the largest ever for the county in a law enforcement case, Shiu said.
Earlier this year, the city of Santa Clara agreed to pay $5.3 million to the family of Jesus Geney Montes, who was suffering from a psychiatric breakdown when police fatally shot him. In 2020, Walnut Creek paid $4 million to the family of Miles Hall, a mentally ill man who was fatally shot by police a year earlier.
No national database exists of convictions involving law enforcement officers. But guilty verdicts in cases involving an officer’s use of force — even on charges not directly related to someone’s death — are exceptionally rare, legal experts said.
A broader cultural shift may be afoot in and out of the courtroom, though, with more police encounters captured on video. Many prosecutors also appear more willing to bring charges against officers — particularly after the killing of George Floyd last year in Minneapolis and the subsequent conviction of former police officer Derek Chauvin in his death.
Some legal experts said the verdict could embolden prosecutors to seek charges in future police misconduct cases, despite Hall’s jury being deadlocked on the most serious charge. Tuesday’s verdict is notable, given that juries have long been reluctant to question officers’ judgments when faced with split-second decisions.
“This is the kind of result few prosecutors would count as a defeat or a reason not to go forward,” said Jonathan Simon, a UC Berkeley law professor.
While offering a measure of vindication for Contra Costa County District Attorney Diana Becton, the verdict serves as a “two-edged sword” by raising fresh questions about why charges were not filed sooner in the case, said Michael Cardoza, a Bay Area defense attorney.
Becton filed charges on April 21 of this year — two and a half years after the fatal Danville encounter, and a day after a jury convicted Chauvin in the death of Floyd.
The decision spurred pushback from within Becton’s office when four prosecutors filed a protest letter, arguing that “delays, such as in this case, create confusion which justifiably erodes confidence of the public and law enforcement in the process.”
Arboleda’s family also criticized the delay — arguing it proved deadly in March of this year, when Hall was placed back on patrol and later fatally shot an unhoused man who had been living in Danville.
Cardoza said: “It shows that it should have been charged long ago — it shows that politics were being played.”
The criminal case hinged on the central question of whether Hall acted in self defense when he pulled in front of Arboleda’s vehicle after a slow-moving car chase through Danville. Hall fired at Arboleda 10 times, killing him.
The jury’s guilty verdict on Hall’s assault charge dealt specifically with whether he wrongfully fired at Arboleda and seriously wounded him.
One law professor expressed less certainty that verdicts in cases such as Hall’s could spur broader change in district attorney’s offices across the nation. The facts of each case are different, and predicting juries decisions is always dangerous territory, said David Sklansky, a Stanford law professor.
“It’s difficult to read into any result, in a single criminal case, some broader message about patterns of prosecution, because every criminal case is unique,” he said.