Santa Clara DA Jeff Rosen Tried to Punish Stanford Protesters Again, Until Judge Pulled Him from Case
> Santa Clara District Attorney Jeff Rosen has twice now brought felony conspiracy and vandalism charges against Stanford University students who occupied a campus building in 2024 in protest of Israel’s genocide in Gaza. After the initial trial ended in a hung jury in February, with jurors unable to reach a determination on either charge, Rosen immediately moved for a retrial. But on May 7, a Santa Clara County Superior Court judge removed him and his office from the case, finding that they could not impartially try the protesters—a rare rebuke for a district attorney, and a major twist to one of the harshest prosecutions of student protestors for Palestine anywhere in the US.
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> Stanford undergraduate student German Gonzalez, one of the defendants, told Bolts that the decision had lifted a weight off his shoulders. “This really feels like a vindication,” he said.
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> Rosen has said the decision to prosecute the students is neither personal nor political. “I think the best we can hope for in our elected officials is that they recognize the biases, that they set them aside and do their duty,” he told the LA Times in April 2025. “And that’s what I do every day.”
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> Stanford undergraduate student German Gonzalez, one of the defendants, told Bolts that the decision had lifted a weight off his shoulders. “This really feels like a vindication,” he said.
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> Rosen has said the decision to prosecute the students is neither personal nor political. “I think the best we can hope for in our elected officials is that they recognize the biases, that they set them aside and do their duty,” he told the LA Times in April 2025. “And that’s what I do every day.”