STORY: “Since 2013, an Oakland man has faced life in felony assault case. It took five days of trial for a judge to throw out the case," by Reporter Nate Gartrell, published by The Mercury News on February 12, 2021.
SUB-HEADING: "Judge ruled DA evidence fell short even assuming it was true."
GIST: ‘Five days into a felony assault trial in which the defendant was facing life, a superior court judge dismissed all charges in a ruling that found that even if all the prosecution evidence was true, it still wasn’t enough to justify a guilty verdict, according to attorneys familiar with the case.
The decision by Superior Court Judge Thomas Reardon, issued Thursday afternoon, raises questions about the Oakland police investigation behind the charges, the defendant’s attorney said in an interview with this newspaper. Reardon made his ruling granting a defense motion for acquittal at the end of the District Attorney’s case, citing a penal code section that allows judges to do so if the prosecution evidence “is insufficient to sustain a conviction of such offense or offenses on appeal.”
The defendant is a 35-year-old Oakland resident who lost custody of his child in 2013 when he was charged with assaulting his 3-year-old stepson, who suffered permanent injuries. This newspaper is not naming him.
Reached for comment Thursday afternoon, the man’s attorney, deputy public defender Joseph Goldstein-Breyer, said Oakland police overlooked a number of key factors that should have led them in another direction: that the boy appeared lethargic earlier in the day, when he left a daycare that “had a documented history of child abuse and neglect,” and that his client cooperated with police and medical staff from the beginning. Goldstein-Breyer accused investigators of having “race-based” tunnel vision because his client is Black.
“I can say with all the confidence in the world that if I had brought either of my children to the hospital with these injuries I would not have for a moment been treated the way my client was by OPD, by CPS, or by this District Attorney’s office,” Goldstein-Breyer said. He later added, “They decided who they wanted to pay before they figured out who actually did it.”
Neither Oakland police nor the Alameda District Attorney’s office immediately responded to requests for comment.
The acquittal, even coming from a judge’s order, means that the defendant cannot be retried on the same charges.
On Wednesday, the prosecution put forth an expert on child abuse who testified that without medical intervention, the boy would have died, and that he has cognitive difficulties to this day. The prosecution’s expert was asked to assume that the the child was fine when he left daycare the day his injury was discovered, but Goldstein-Breyer said there was ample evidence the boy had been hurt beforehand.
Alameda County’s Chief Public Defender, Brendon Woods, publicly discussed one element of the case on Twitter earlier this week, highlighting that “There is not one single Black person on this jury,” though, “Alameda County is 11 percent Black” and “the jail is 49 percent Black.” Woods didn’t publicly disclose details of the case.
Goldstein-Breyer said his client’s son was taken from him on the day his stepson’s injuries were discovered. He hasn’t seen his son since that day.
“He has had nearly eight years of his life stripped from him that he can never have back,” Goldstein-Breyer said. “He has been walking, living, breathing a nightmare that he did not bring upon himself.""
The entire story can be read at:
https://www.mercurynews.com/2021/02/11/since-2013-an-oakland-man-has-faced-life-in-felony-child-assault-case-it-took-five-days-of-trial-for-a-judge-to-find-he-was-innocent
