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Following a mistrial, the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office is set to retry on March 23 the felony case against five Stanford University students, who barricaded themselves in the president’s office during a 2024 protest in support of Palestine.
After a weeks-long trial and slow-moving pre-trial procedures, a deadlocked jury announced on Feb. 13 that no further arguments would change their minds.
Following the proceeding, District Attorney Jeff Rosen quickly said that he would retry the case – but defense attorneys hope he might not get that opportunity.
At Wednesday’s hearing, defense attorney Avi Singh, later joined by attorney Leah Gillis, filed a motion for recusal against the District Attorney’s Office, which could disqualify it from retrying the case due to prejudice against the students.
Rosen has a dedicated webpage to fighting antisemitism where he solicits donations for his office. The webpage highlights his lawsuit against German Gonzalez, Maya Burke, Taylor McCann, Amy Jing Zhai and Hunter Taylor-Black, who were charged with felony vandalism and conspiracy to trespass and occupy.
Singh said the website falsely implies the students are antisemitic, he wrote in court documents.
“DA Rosen’s baseless accusation of antisemitism is indicative of a bias against the defendants based on their belief that Israel committed genocide against Palestinian people in Gaza,” Singh wrote.
Various videos and speeches on the website detail Rosen’s commitment to fighting for Israel, which he described as a “fight for America.”
“To be good Americans we must be better Jews,” Rosen said in a speech at San Jose Hillel. “And to be better Jews, we must become Zionists.”
In the same speech, Rosen discussed his creation of a coalition against racism on his college campus, the University of California Los Angeles, and claimed that another student club, the Students for Justice in Palestine, had the opposite intentions.
“DA Rosen is not entitled to continue to pursue a case where he falsely describes the prosecution of the defendants as part of his fight against antisemitism while attempting to raise campaign dollars off that false description,” Singh wrote.
The recusal motion claims that Deputy District Attorney Rob Baker, who led the prosecution, further supported Rosen’s “conflict” and is thus incapable of giving the students a fair trial.
A San Luis Obispo recusal of the entire District Attorney’s Office may have set a precedent for Singh’s motion.
The court decided in August 2022 that District Attorney Dan Dow could not fairly try a group of students who protested in wake of George Floyd’s murder, after Dow characterized the Black Lives Matter movement as a terrorist group that promotes cop killings and antisemitism.
Dow attempted to campaign based off of his work against anti-police and Black Lives Matter movements, according to court documents, which contributed to his recusal. Singh said he believes Rosen’s website exhibits similar traits.
“The conflict exists,” Singh wrote. “The conflict makes it unlikely the defendants will receive a fair trial.”
Rosen did not immediately respond to questions from this publication.
Throughout his arguments at trial, Baker painted a picture of a highly organized criminal group that intended to vandalize the building and occupy it for a long period of time. At times, he criticized the students’ motivations, questioned the depth of their knowledge on divestment and at one point called the group “unamerican.”
“What if this were white supremacists occupying a church?” Baker said, referring to the students’ protest motivations.
In another instance, he said an officer who used profane language against a student was not “necessarily wrong,” according to court documents.
Throughout his arguments, Baker said that the case wasn’t about political motivations but property destruction.
“This was an attempted extortion,” Baker said during his opening statements.
The university originally estimated $700,000 in repairs, but a more detailed investigation concluded that $300,000 in damage could be attributed to the protest, according to court documents. Two door frames, which appeared to be chipped from force, cost $12,000 to repair, according to Baker, and an antique grandfather clock with few spatters of fake blood cost thousands to “assess.”
The 12 protesters entered the university building in June 2024 by breaking one window and allowing the remaining students to enter through a door. Once inside, the group covered cameras with tissue and foil paper, stacked furniture to block doors, then hung up banners and chanted, according to camera footage and witness testimony. The action came after students said Stanford did not respond to various requests and student protests to discuss divestment from companies that supply military aid to Israel.
“They made signs and the death toll grew. … They tried to have a conversation and the death toll grew,” Defense Attorney Tony Brass said about the students’ aim to end suffering in Palestine.
Baker also argued that the students intended to trespass and occupy the building for a long period of time, but there was no evidence that students brought food or changes of clothes into the building.
Video evidence also showed a police officer admitting that the students were willing to exit the building peacefully, one by one.
Remaining protesters Eliana Lindsay Fuchs, Isabella Terrazas and Zoe Georgia Edelman took alternative deals before the trial began. John Richardson, who testified for the prosecution, entered a youth deferment program. Cameron Michael Pennington, Kaiden Wang and Gretchen Rose Giumarin pled no contest and had their charges reduced to misdemeanors, according to court documents.
In response to a request for comment, the District Attorney’s Office referred this publication to the Attorney General’s Office, which will help decide the motion for recusal on March 18.
