A California appellate court is poised to side with former 49ers star Dana Stubblefield in his effort to be released from prison. His 2020 rape conviction was overturned due to prosecutorial misconduct, and his legal team is pushing for a bail hearing.
An appellate court has signaled its intention to side with former San Francisco 49ers star Dana Stubblefield in his fight to be released from prison. In a brief order published Friday, the Sixth District Court of Appeal stated that “good cause appearing, the parties are notified that this court is considering issuing a peremptory writ,” and set a Tuesday filing deadline for objections.
This order was issued in response to a petition from Stubblefield’s legal team asking the appellate court to compel the Santa Clara County Superior Court to hold a hearing that would allow them to argue for bail and their client’s release. However, Santa Clara County Judge Hector Ramon initially pushed the matter to January 17th to evaluate his jurisdiction in holding such a hearing. Ultimately, Judge Ramon decided that the case remained under the jurisdiction of the Sixth District court until it issued a remittitur, a technical ruling that returns jurisdiction to the lower court, which cannot be done before February 25th at the earliest. This date could be further delayed by weeks or months if the state Attorney General’s office chooses to challenge the conviction reversal.This is why Stubblefield’s attorneys are pressing for a bail hearing as soon as possible, emphasizing that he has been incarcerated for over a month despite now having no legal conviction on record. The appellate court’s order is clear: “The trial court has jurisdiction to hear matters of bail before the remittitur,” said Kenneth Rosenfeld, Stubblefield’s lead trial attorney. “Not only can they hear it, but they must hear it. It’s stunning we had to do this writ.”Stubblefield’s 2020 rape conviction was overturned last year by an appellate court. The court found that the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office violated the Racial Justice Act when a prosecutor suggested to jurors in closing arguments that police opted not to search Stubblefield’s home for a gun because he was a famous Black man. The appellate ruling concluded that because of this, race directly influenced the availability of evidence for the jury to consider in determining Stubblefield’s guilt. He had been accused of using a gun to threaten and then rape a woman who came to his Morgan Hill home for a babysitting interview in 2015. Stubblefield, who played for the 49ers from 1993 to 2001, and his defense team have consistently maintained that he engaged in a paid sexual encounter with his accuser, identified in the appellate ruling as Jane Doe, and that he initially lied to cover up the tryst but never assaulted her. The Racial Justice Act of 2020, authored by state Assemblymember Ash Kalra, D-San Jose, came into effect in 2021 and makes it illegal to obtain a conviction “on the basis of race, ethnicity, or national origin.” The law allows for convictions to be overturned if found to have been influenced by systemic bias. The appellate ruling for Stubblefield marked the first major case reversal in Santa Clara County under this law. In the defense team’s bail hearing petition, appellate attorney Joe Doyle cited the 1994 Palma v. Industrial Fasteners decision, which found that a writ is warranted “when petitioner’s entitlement to relief is so obvious” and “when such entitlement is conceded or when there has been clear error under well-settled principles of law and undisputed facts — or when there is an unusual urgency requiring acceleration of the normal process.” The Sixth District court referenced the Palma precedent in its latest order. Barring an objection being filed by Tuesday, the court would be expected to direct the lower court to hold a bail hearing for Stubblefield, which his defense team intends to schedule immediately
Dana Stubblefield San Francisco 49Ers Rape Conviction Appellate Court Bail Hearing Racial Justice Act
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