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Court of Appeal:
Trial Court May Order Defendant’s Release Before Remittitur
Opinion Says Former San Francisco 49er Player, Whose Forcible Rape Conviction Was Overturned Due to Successful Assertion of Racial Justice Act Claim on Appeal, Was Entitled to Hearing
By Kimber Cooley, associate editor
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DANA STUBBLEFIELD defendant |
The Sixth District Court of Appeal has held in a case of first impression that where a conviction had been reversed, a judge did not need to wait for the issuance of a remittitur before ruling on a defendant’s motion for release on bail or on his own recognizance, rejecting the contention that the trial court lacked jurisdiction until the appellate process had been concluded.
The question arose after defendant Dana Stubblefield, who is Black, succeeded in having his forcible rape conviction overturned on appeal due to claims of racial bias by the prosecutor, Santa Clara County Deputy District Attorney Tim McInerny.
Stubblefield, a former defensive tackle with the San Francisco 49ers, was convicted of raping an intellectually disabled woman in his house. In an opinion, filed Dec. 26, 2024, and authored by Presiding Justice Mary J. Greenwood, the court found that the defendant had established a claim under the Racial Justice Act of 2020 and reversed that conviction.
Motion for Release
A few days later, on Dec. 31, 2024, Stubblefield filed a motion seeking release on his own recognizance or, alternatively, on bail. Santa Clara Superior Court Judge Hector E. Ramon denied the motion on the ground that the court lacked jurisdiction to hear the matter because the remittitur from the decision on appeal had not yet been issued.
On Jan 21, Stubblefield filed a petition for a writ of mandate, asking the Sixth District to order the trial court to adjudicate the motion for release.
Greenwood authored the opinion, filed Wednesday, granting the petition, saying:
“The parties cite no cases, and we are aware of none, concerning a motion for release by a prisoner after the reversal of their conviction on appeal but before the issuance of a remittitur….Nothing in the language or structure of the statutory scheme excludes defendants in Stubblefield’s procedural posture, and the relevant case law is consistent with his having the right to be heard on the motion. In short, we see no legal grounds or practical reasons for treating Stubblefield contrarily, particularly in light of our decision reversing his conviction.”
Justices Adrienne M. Grover and Cynthia C. Lie joined in the opinion.
The Office of the Attorney General, on Tuesday, petitioned the California Supreme Court for review of the reversal of the conviction. The office did not dispute that the trial court had jurisdiction to rule on the motion for release.
Appellate Jurisdiction
Greenwood said that,“[a]s a general rule,” the trial court is divested of jurisdiction over anything affecting a judgment after the filing of a valid notice of appeal but that “appellate jurisdiction does not divest the trial court of all power to act.”
She noted that Code of Civil Procedure §916(a) provides that “the perfecting of an appeal stays proceedings in the trial court upon the judgment or order appealed from or upon the matters embraced therein or affected thereby” but the statute goes on to say that “the trial court may proceed upon any other matter embraced in the action and not affected by the judgment or order.”
The jurist pointed to case law holding that “[t]he fact that the defendant has been convicted of a felony, sentenced, and has appealed, does not deprive the trial court of jurisdiction to grant bail pending the appeal,” and said that Penal Code §1291 “expressly creates trial court jurisdiction over a motion for release pending appeal” as it allows “the order admitting him to bail may be made by…the Magistrate before whom the trial was had.”
Based on this legislative scheme, she concluded that “[t]hese Penal Code sections contain no express language depriving a trial court of jurisdiction” over Stubblefield’s motion.
Ramon relied on a case finding that a retrial conducted by a trial court before a remittitur was issued was null and void for lack of jurisdiction. Finding the case distinguishable, Greenwood remarked:
“A retrial of the same offenses underlying the judgment on appeal is necessarily a proceeding ‘upon the matters embraced therein’ under [§916(a)]….By contrast, a motion for release pending appeal is a ‘matter embraced in the action and not affected by the judgment or order’ under that same subdivision. Consistent with this distinction, the Penal Code sections cited above grant trial courts jurisdiction to hear a motion for release pending appeal concurrent with appellate jurisdiction over the judgment.”
The case is Stubblefield v. Superior Court of Santa Clara County, H052893 .
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