By Michael G. Stogner
D.A. Stephen M. Wagstaffe
Condemnation Racism And Bigotry
Stephen M. Wagstaffe
District Attorney
The Prosecutor the Judges are talking about below is Stephen M. Wagstaffe “his ulterior motive was race-based.”
[22] But Jefferson was not the only African-American the prosecutor peremptorily challenged. He also struck the only other African-American potential juror, and, in so doing, pro- vided several pretextual explanations for that strike. In light of this additional strike, the prosecutor’s proffer of two ques- tionable explanations for his strike of Jefferson take on a sig- nificance that they might otherwise lack. See Lewis v. Lewis, 321 F.3d 824, 831 (9th Cir. 2003) (“The proffer of various faulty reasons and only one or two otherwise adequate rea- sons, may undermine the prosecutor’s credibility to such an extent that a court should sustain a Batson challenge.”). At a minimum, these dubious explanations reaffirm our conclusion that the prosecutor’s actual reason for striking M.C. differed from those that he asserted and that his ulterior motive was race-based. See Kesser, 465 F.3d at 369 (“The prosecutor’s willingness to make up nonracial reasons for striking [three minority jurors] makes it even harder to believe that his rea- sons for striking [a fourth juror] were race-neutral.”).
IV. Conclusion
[23] Taken as a whole, the record compels a finding that the prosecutor’s non-race based reasons for peremptorily striking M.C. were pretexts. The fact that the prosecutor peremptorily struck the only other African-American juror in the jury pool and provided at least two implausible reasons for that challenge reinforces this conclusion. We therefore hold that both the California Court of Appeal and the district court clearly erred when they found that Ali failed to establish pur- poseful discrimination. We further hold that, in light of the overwhelming evidence indicating that the prosecutor in Ali’s case acted with discriminatory intent when he struck M.C., the California appellate court’s finding to the contrary was an unreasonable determination of the facts in light of the evi- dence presented in the state court proceedings. See 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)(2). We therefore reverse the judgment of the dis- trict court and remand with directions to issue a conditional writ of habeas corpus requiring Ali’s release from custody, unless the State elects to retry Ali within a reasonable time to be determined by the district court.
REVERSED and REMANDED.
Matthew Graves case in another clear example.
Chinedu Okobi Sheriff In-Custody Death was ruled a Homicide by the Coroner on December 31, 2018 on March 1, 2019 Steve Wagstaffe announced he was not charging any of the SIX County Employees.
It is easy for Politicians to say Nice words, pay attention to their actions,
Senior Inspector John Warren, Lets hope this is on his off time.
