Dana Stubblefield could be released after 2020 | College News

Days after Dana Stubblefield’s 2020 rape conviction was reversed by an appellate court docket as a result of of “racially discriminatory language” by the prosecution during the trial, an lawyer for the previous San Francisco 49ers star stated he expects Stubblefield to be released from custody within days.

Attorney Allen Sawyer instructed The Times that he and Kenneth Rosenfeld, a fellow lawyer additionally representing Stubblefield, filed a movement Tuesday with the Superior Court of Santa Clara for Stubblefield’s release. A listening to could be held by the tip of this week, Sawyer stated.

“This hearing is just going to be addressing the status of his custody now that the appellate court has reversed his conviction and he’s not at this point convicted of anything, not even a parking ticket,” Sawyer stated. “We expect that he should be released until the time when it eventually comes back under what they call a remittitur from the appellate court to the trial court, officially notifying them of the reversal and instructing them on how to proceed”

Sawyer stated he expects the remittitur to happen in February, at which time it’ll be determined if a retrial would possibly be heard.

Stubblefield performed 11 seasons within the NFL for San Francisco, Washington and Oakland, incomes defensive rookie of the 12 months (1993) and defensive participant of the 12 months (1997) honors during his time with the 49ers.

In May 2016, Stubblefield was charged with raping a lady at gunpoint the earlier 12 months. During his trial, Stubblefield’s protection argued that the intercourse was consensual. He was sentenced to fifteen years to life in jail in October 2020 after a jury discovered him guilty of forcible rape, forcible oral copulation and false imprisonment, and that he had used a firearm in committing the primary two offenses.

Last week, California’s Sixth Court of Appeals reversed Stubblefield’s conviction primarily based on the California Racial Justice Act of 2020, which prohibits judges, attorneys, law enforcement officer, amongst others, from exhibiting “bias or animus towards the defendant because of the defendant’s race, ethnicity, or national origin.”

The appellate court docket’s choice was primarily based on language used within the prosecution’s closing argument, which started practically two months after a white police officer killed George Floyd, a Black man, in Minneapolis on May 25, 2020, and sparked a summer time of protests nationwide.

“In closing arguments, the prosecutor asserted the police made the decision not to search Stubblefield’s house [for a gun] based partly on the fact that he was a famous Black man,” the opinion reads. “The prosecutor claimed a search would have opened up ‘a storm of controversy,’ and added, ‘Can you imagine in Morgan Hill when they search an African-American —,” whereupon defense counsel objected. The trial court sustained the objection but gave the jury no admonishments or instructions with respect to this part of the prosecutor’s arguments.”

The opinon continued: “We find the prosecution violated the Racial Justice Act as codified in part at Penal Code section 745. The prosecution explicitly asserted Stubblefield’s race was a factor in law enforcement’s decision not to search his house. The statement implied the house might have been searched and a gun found had Stubblefield not been Black, and that Stubblefield therefore gained an undeserved advantage at trial because he was a Black man.

“Second, the claim that a search would ‘open up a storm of controversy’ implicitly referenced the events that followed George Floyd’s then-recent killing, appealing to racially biased perceptions of those events and associating Stubblefield with them based on his race. We find the prosecution’s statements constituted ‘racially discriminatory language about’ Stubblefield’s race within the meaning of Penal Code section 745, subdivision (a)(2), and we conclude his conviction was sought or obtained in violation of subdivision (a). … We are required to vacate the conviction and sentence, find that it is legally invalid, and order new proceedings consistent with subdivision (a).”

The Santa Clara County Office of the District Attorney instructed The Times in a assertion Tuesday that it’s “studying the opinion.”

In an interview with TMZ on Monday, Rosenfeld stated Stubblefield is “euphoric” over the reversal of his conviction and Sawyer added that their consumer is trying ahead to being along with his household upon his release.