OAKLAND — An Alameda County decide on Friday refused to toss the manslaughter case towards former San Leandro police officer Jason Fletcher, discovering no proof that former prosecutors tainted the case by allegedly hiding proof from protection attorneys.
Choose Thomas Reardon’s ruling clears the best way for Fletcher to face trial in late January within the 2020 demise of Steven Taylor, who was fatally shot inside a San Leandro Walmart.
If it proceeds to trial, it might mark first time a police officer faces a jury over an on-duty killing in Alameda County since BART Officer Johannes Mehserle was tried — and convicted — within the deadly taking pictures of Oscar Grant greater than 15 years in the past. Mehserle was discovered responsible of involuntary manslaughter in July 2010, by a Los Angeles County jury after the case was moved down there.
At Fletcher’s listening to Friday in Oakland, Choose Reardon expressed frustration with one in every of Alameda County District Legal professional Ursula Jones Dickson’s high lieutenants when the veteran prosecutor repeatedly refused to immediately reply the decide.
Again and again, the decide informed Assistant District Legal professional Casey Bates to say whether or not he supported or opposed Fletcher’s movement to dismiss the case for “outrageous government misconduct.” Each single time, Bates refused to supply a easy “yes” or “no.”
As a substitute Bates — who leads Jones Dickson’s Public Integrity Division — expressed alarm at his predecessor’s actions, saying they had been in reality “outrageous.” Greater than two hours into the listening to, Reardon appeared to lose his endurance.
“You keep wanting to make speeches about your outrage,” mentioned Reardon, a former Alameda County prosecutor. “Frankly it’s grandstanding. To what end, I’m not sure. But you won’t answer the court’s question, so I think I’ve heard enough from you.”
After the listening to, Taylor’s household and their supporters hugged and gave one another high-fives within the hallway exterior the courtroom. His grandmother, Addie Kitchen, expressed reduction.
“Let the jury make a decision,” Kitchen mentioned. “What we saw the day is the DA did not do his job. The judge did the DA’s job, and that is unacceptable.”
Kitchen strongly criticized Jones Dickson’s workplace for permitting Fletcher’s lawyer to “take over.”
“I have no confidence in DA Bates. He did not fight for us,” she mentioned.
The listening to supplied one more twist to a case filled with them, together with the 2024 removing — and subsequent reinstatement this 12 months — of the Alameda County District Legal professional’s Workplace because the prosecuting company. These orders largely centered round complaints by Fletcher’s attorneys that District Legal professional Pamela Value, who county voters ousted from workplace final 12 months, was biased towards the previous officer.
Extra lately, Fletcher’s attorneys — who represented Mehserle in 2010 — opened a brand new line of assault that sought the case’s outright dismissal.
In a flurry of courtroom filings, lawyer Michael Rains claimed that former Alameda County prosecutor Zachary Linowitz acted “unethical” by by no means alerting them about communications he had with a number of police use-of-force specialists that will have doubted prosecutors’ probabilities at trial. Linowitz allegedly informed one skilled that “you are my last hope — I’ve run it by several experts,” Rains mentioned.
Their case was repeatedly buttressed by Bates’ personal monthslong investigation into Linowitz, a former lead prosecutor of the Public Accountability Unit that Value began in 2023. At one prior listening to, Bates appeared so involved in regards to the former prosecutor’s actions that he urged Linowitz and others tied to him could possibly be criminally liable for his or her conduct.
A fourth former prosecutor, Alexis Feigen Fasteau, didn’t present as much as courtroom Friday regardless of being subpoenaed to attend, Bates mentioned.
Choose Reardon discovered that one alleged act of misconduct by no means occurred as claimed, as a result of an skilled didn’t seem to forged doubt on the DA’s case till after Linowitz left the workplace in early 2025. In one other occasion, Linowitz’s communications with a possible skilled appeared too preliminary to necessitate a proper discover to Fletcher’s attorneys, the decide discovered.
Reardon additionally appeared to acknowledge the tough path that prosecutors face in successful a conviction at trial.
He referenced one other ruling on the case in 2021, when fellow Alameda County Choose C. Don Clay mentioned that “if this is just it right now in front of a jury, there’s no way in the world” that prosecutors would prevail.
Nonetheless, Reardon mentioned he wished the case to go earlier than a jury.
“It may not be the world’s greatest case, I get it. I’ve seen stronger cases from their standpoint,” Reardon mentioned. He added of prosecutors: “I get the sense they know they have a difficult case. And they may just have to try it.”
