Man sentenced in 2020 murder case, after concerns of political meddling by former DA Pamela Price

OAKLAND — Standing feet from the man who killed her husband, Melina Armstead on Friday openly wished for the convicted murderer to live “a long and healthy life” spent “suffocating” in a prison cell tormented by visions of the family he destroyed.

“I hope that you never forget me, or the kids you knew that lived in our home,” said Armstead, before looking directly at the shackled man and addressing him by name. “Remember us, Jamal, every single day for the rest of your life.”

Alameda County Judge Thomas Reardon on Friday sentenced Jamal Thomas, 48, to life in prison for the 2020 fatal shooting of Miles Armstead. Thomas will be eligible for parole after 28 years and eight months, after Reardon ruled that all three of his convictions in the killing would be served back-to-back, instead of simultaneously.

Melina Armstead said the Reardon’s decision, which came days away from the five-year anniversary of her husband’s death, was “a long time coming.”

The sentencing capped a yearslong saga that raised questions about the criminal justice system’s ability to protect victims of harassment, along with the effectiveness of Alameda County’s public safety net for people suffering from homelessness and mental illness.

Thomas’ case later became a flashpoint in the turbulent tenure of Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price, amid claims that the county’s top prosecutor used her office as a political cudgel against Thomas’ attorney on the eve of trial. Voters recalled Price from office last November, bringing her first term to an abrupt end.

Jurors originally agreed with prosecutors that Thomas should spend an additional 10 years in prison, on top of the typical 25 years-to-life sentence handed down to convicted murders in California. That’s because Price’s office added a sentencing enhancement to Thomas’ list of charges before trial began in summer 2024.

The Alameda County Public Defender’s Office later accused Price of adding the enhancement as retaliation for Thomas’ attorney, Jennie Otis, having complained about Price and her office’s handling of client’s case. At a February hearing, Judge Reardon said Price’s actions “doesn’t pass the stink test,” adding that he had to toss the enhancement because “the appearance of unfairness here is too great.”

Knowing that Thomas will be eligible for parole much earlier is “beyond frustrating,” Melina Armstead said after Friday’s hearing.

“It’s pretty devastating,” she said. “It feels very unfair. It just shows how the law that’s meant to protect can deteriorate when politics get involved.”

The Armsteads once called Thomas their neighbor in 2017, after moving into their “Brady Bunch”-style dream home in East Oakland and raising four children from previous marriages. Back then, Miles Armstead befriended Thomas and occasionally gave him $10 or $15 to help with yard work, his widow said.

It all changed two years later, when Thomas and his family lost their house to an investor who wanted to buy the house unencumbered by tenants.

Under the influence of drugs and addled by delusions that Miles Armstead was to blame for his family’s fortunes, Thomas began ruthlessly harassing the couple. The Armsteads watched as 14 of their 22 windows were broken, and police responded to the house 20 times between November 2019 and May 2020.

Authorities ultimately arrested Thomas three times on suspicion of harassment or assault. Yet the badgering persisted, and the Armstead family decided to move elsewhere

On May 1, 2020, Miles Armstead returned to that vacant house and began preparing it to be sold. While visiting, Thomas walked up to Miles Armstead and gunned him down, authorities say, firing at him over and over while his body lay on the sidewalk.

Melina Armstead learned of Miles’ death when she became worried about her husband and drove to their old house — arriving to find his body laying beneath a yellow tarp, behind a sea of yellow crime scene tape and officers collecting evidence.

On Friday, while speaking before the judge, she choked back tears — and struggled to make sense of it all.

She recalled being diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, and cycling through four jobs while coping with the loss of her husband. She has a hard time sleeping and is on her second medical leave from work. She’s “simply exhausted” from being without “my best friend, my cheerleader and my lover.”

Addressing Thomas directly, Melina Armstead recalled how her husband “saw you, he felt for you, he wished life was different for you.” Shortly before his death, Miles Armstead had even remarked how “you just needed someone to pray for you and be your friend. And that’s what he intended to do.”

“You murdered that man in the middle of the day and left him on the sidewalk to die,” Melina Armstead said.

At the time of the killing, Melina Armstead was seven months pregnant with the couple’s first child. The girl is named Ava, she said, and blessed with her father’s chestnut-brown eyes.

The four-year-old loves soccer, ballet and the Spiderman character Miles Morales, who shares the same name as her father. She tells her classmates that her “daddy Miles was the coolest because he lives in heaven with Jesus.”

“As a mother it breaks my heart that she will only have that to hold on to,” Melina Armstead said, before turning to Thomas and making a final vow. “Remember me, Jamal. Because if and when any parole hearing comes up, you will see me.”