Comments on: San Mateo top prosecutor guilty of stealth racial bias in jury selection

By: junya

junya — Sat, 03 Apr 2010 05:19:03 +0000

“While they may publicly vow to appeal to the Supreme Court, they must look at their likelihood of success. The number of cases taken by the Supreme Court is shrinking – it’s likely that the Court would not review it.”

Keane was right: on Monday March 29, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to review the Ninth Circuit ruling. That was California’s last chance to appeal the ruling that declared that Wagstaffe used race to eliminate jurors – and that the ruling of the lower courts in favor of Wagstaffe “was not only incorrect, but unreasonable”.

Yet Wagstaffe himself has not been sanctioned by any court, bar association, or African-American organization. In fact, he is sure to be promoted to District Attorney in the June election: he stands unopposed.

The dinosaurs are alive and thriving in this corner of the world.

By: Hal Wulff

Hal Wulff — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 21:45:04 +0000

It is a shame that Steve Wagstaff is being allowed to continue merrily along unquestioned in the media with his blatant inveterate ineptitude.

By: Michael G. Stogner

Michael G. Stogner — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 22:04:41 +0000

This is not the first time for Steve Wagstaffe. He personally contacted America’s Most Wanted to report a Black man had failed to appear in our Drug Court. AMW did a show starring Steve Wagstaffe about Victor Willis. Willis sued AMW and they removed the video from their site. He was a failure to appear thats all. What was Wagstaffe thinking?

By: junya

junya — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 00:44:13 +0000

The Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals slammed the door on Wagstaffe and the California Atorney General’s office that is supporting him: on October 23 it refused to reconsider the ruling. So it looks like state courts now have no choice but to learn to somehow retool their racial jury-rigging to pass the new federal test: comparative juror analysis.

Meanwhile, for the majority of cases with little chance of reaching federal appeal, this ruling need not trouble prosecutors like Wagstaffe, as they can continue to rely on district and state judges to rubber-stamp their most dubious claims. But in the Alvarez case, a death-penalty trial (that by law requires automatic review by the California Supreme Court – and will almost certainly be appealed to the US Supreme Court), Wagstaffe appears to have carefully selected a jury balanced in age, gender, and ethnicity. And with two African-Americans.