The attorney for former San Francisco 49er Dana Stubblefield said Thursday that Santa Clara County’s 6th District Court of Appeals has thrown out his 2020 rape conviction.
Stubblefield, who played defensive lineman for both the 49ers and the Oakland Raiders, was convicted in July 2020 of rape by force, oral copulation by force and false imprisonment of a 34-year-old disabled woman at gunpoint. Stubblefield was accused of committing the crime in 2015 at his Morgan Hill home. He was found not guilty of rape and oral copulation of a person incapable of consent.
Stubblefield was sentenced in October 2020 to 15 years to life in prison for his crimes. At the time of his sentencing, his lawyer said his client’s name would be cleared if an appeal were filed.
Defense attorneys argued that the jury was not given all the information available in the case and that there were racist undertones in the prosecution’s arguments.
“It was a consensual encounter. She was a paid sex worker and that is what brought about this encounter. We knew that if the jury had heard all the information, they would have come to the same conclusion,” said Stubblefield’s trial attorney Allen Sawyer. “Much evidence was withheld and the context of the argument was, according to the court of appeal, racially motivated against Mr Stubblefield.”
Sawyer said the defense team will ask for their client’s release from jail next week.
It will be up to the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office to decide on a new trial. When asked for comment on the case on Thursday afternoon, the Public Prosecution Service responded that they were studying the court’s decision.
Stubblefield began his 11-year career in the NFL with the 49ers in 1993 after being selected in the first round. He won the league’s Defensive Rookie of the Year award in his first season and anchored the defense of the team that won Super Bowl XXIX against the San Diego Chargers in 1995.
He later won NFL Defensive Player of the Year honors in 1997 before leaving the team to play for Washington. He would return to the Bay Area to finish his career, playing with the 49ers in 2000-2001 and the Raiders in 2003.
