Former San Francisco 49ers defensive tackle Dana Stubblefield had his rape conviction overturned Thursday on the grounds of racial bias.
A California appellate court found Stubblefield didn't get a fair trial and that the prosecution violated the Racial Justice Act by making racially biased claims about Stubblefield being Black.
"Was it long overdue? It was. Are we thankful? Yes. Did we expect it? We absolutely expected this case to be overturned," said Kenneth Rosenfeld, Stubblefield's attorney.
Stubblefield was convicted in July 2020 of raping a woman who was allegedly at his home to interview for a babysitting job in 2015. She claimed he threatened her with a gun, but police never searched for it. Prosecutors claimed the reason a search was never done had partly to do with Stubblefield being a famous Black man on trial during the George Floyd protests.
"The use of a firearm was centerpiece to Mr. Stubblefield's conviction in this case, and yet the police never searched his home to see whether he even had a firearm," legal analyst Steven Clark said.
Stubblefield was originally sentenced to 15 years to life in prison.
Rosenfeld will be back in court next week, fighting to get Stubblefield out of prison and home with his family.
"We're going to fight for that next week," Rosenfeld said. "Then we'll take it the next step to have this case completely dismissed."
The court's decision has far-reaching impacts beyond Stubblefield. It's a watershed moment for the Racial Justice Act, a law passed in 2020, shortly after Stubblefield's conviction, and authored by Assemblymember Ash Kalra of San Jose.
"This case will make a huge change to how trials move forward in the future because of its high profile nature and who Mr. Stubblefield was," Clark said.
