District attorney seeking death penalty for Half Moon Bay mass shooting

Zhao has pleaded not guilty to all charges, and his defense attorney Jonathan McDougall did not immediately respond to request for comment.

Since the indictment, a jury trial date in Zhao’s case has still not been set — though Assistant District Attorney Josh Stauffer, the prosecutor on the case, announced the decision to seek the death penalty in court June 3.

The last time the death penalty was used in San Mateo County was in 2009, when a jury convicted then 26-year-old Alberto Alvarez to death for the killing of East Palo Alto police Officer Richard May.

Use of the death penalty in California has become increasingly obsolete in recent years — the last death penalty execution in the state occurred in 2006, and Gov. Gavin Newsom placed an official moratorium on the death penalty in 2019. It remains technically legal, however.

Zhao allegedly murdered seven farmworkers and injured one more in a Jan. 23, 2023, mass shooting at two separate mushroom farms on the San Mateo County coast. Officials have described the incident as a workplace-motivated shooting over the suspect’s perceived mistreatment.

The shooting also forced the county and city of Half Moon Bay to reconcile with the squalid and untenable living conditions in which many coastal farmworkers and their families were living. That discovery led to expedited work on two affordable housing projects designated for farmworkers.