Appeal restarted for ex-49er Dana Stubblefield after high court vacates conviction reversal

The complex legal battle for ex-San Francisco 49ers star Dana Stubblefield — who six years ago was imprisoned after a rape conviction and later got it overturned on appeal — entered a new phase this summer after the state Supreme Court vacated the reversal and ordered that it be re-evaluated under new case law. Now the 6th District Court of Appeal, which overturned Stubblefield’s conviction in 2024, must assess whether racially prejudicial language that a prosecutor gave in his closing arguments during the 2020 trial was a “harmless error” or if it unfairly swayed a jury.