Dec. 28 (UPI) — Former NFL defensive star Dana Stubblefield, who in 2020 was sentenced to 15 years to life for raping a developmentally disabled woman, saw his conviction overturned this week by a California appellate court.
California’s 6th District Court of Appeal, based in San Jose, ruled Thursday that Stubblefield’s conviction was obtained in violation of the state’s Racial Justice Act of 2020, agreeing with the former San Francisco 49er’s lawyers that state prosecutors used an illegal, racially-tinged closing argument to convict him.
“Having found that Stubblefield’s conviction was sought or obtained in violation of [the Racial Justice Act] and the judgment having been entered, we conclude subdivision(e)(2)(A) requires us to vacate the conviction and sentence, find that it is legally invalid, and order new proceedings consistent with subdivision (a),” the appellate court wrote.
The case was remanded back to the trial court in Santa Clara, Calif., where the state must now decide whether to re-try the former three-time Pro Bowl defensive tackle.
Stubblefield, 49, was sentenced to 15 years to life in prison after being found guilty of raping a developmentally disabled woman at gunpoint while she was visiting his home as a prospective babysitter in 2015.
The former player’s lawyers argued at trial the sex was consensual and that the woman had accepted money from Stubblefield.
During closing arguments, they also objected to prosecutors’ statements about why the gun allegedly used in the incident was never produced nor was a search for it ever conducted by police.
Prosecutors “explicitly and implicitly appealed to racial bias” by arguing that police did not search Stubblefield’s house partly because he was Black and a search would have resulted in a “storm of controversy” in the wake of the murder of George Floyd by a white Minneapolis police officer only weeks earlier, the appellate court wrote.
The trial judge let the comments stand, constituting a violation of state law barring prosecutors from seeking a conviction on the basis of race, the justices found in vacating the verdict and the sentence against Stubblefield.
Stubblefield was drafted by the 49ers out of the University of Kansas in 1993 and played 11 seasons in the NFL with San Francisco, Washington and Oakland. He won Super Bowl XXIX with the Niners in 1995 and was named the NFL’s Defensive Player of the Year in 1997. He was a Pro Bowler in 1994, 1995 and 1997 before retiring in 2004.
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.