The former 49-year-old’s lawyer, Dana Stubblefield, says the appeal court overturned her rape conviction in 2020

Former San Francisco 49er’s attorney Dana Stubblefield said Thursday that Santa Clara County’s 6th District Court of Appeals overturned his 2020 rape conviction.

Stubblefield, who played defensive lineman for both the 49ers and Oakland Raiders, was convicted in July 2020 of forcible rape, forcible oral copulation and false imprisonment at gunpoint of a 34-year-old disabled woman. Stubblefield was accused of committing the crime in 2015 at his Morgan Hill home. He was found not guilty of rape and oral copulation of a person incapable of consent.

Stubblefield was sentenced to 15 years to life in prison in October 2020 for his crimes. At the time of his sentencing, his lawyer said his client’s name would be removed if an appeal was filed.

Defense attorneys argued the jury was not given all of the information available in the case and that the prosecution’s arguments had racist undertones.

“It was a consensual encounter. She was a paid sex worker and that led to this encounter. We knew that if the jury had heard all the information, they would have come to the same conclusion,” said Stubblefield’s trial attorney, Allen Sawyer. “Much evidence was withheld and the context of the argument was, in the Court of Appeal’s view, racially motivated against Mr Stubblefield.”

Sawyer said the defense team will seek his client’s release from prison as early as next week.

It is up to the Santa Clara County District Attorney to decide whether to reopen the case. When asked for comment on the case on Thursday afternoon, the prosecutor’s office replied that it was considering the court’s opinion.

Stubblefield began his 11-year NFL career with the 49ers in 1993 after being selected in the first round. He won the league’s Defensive Rookie of the Year award in his first season and anchored the defense of the team that won Super Bowl XXIX in 1995 against the San Diego Chargers.

He later won the NFL Defensive Player of the Year award in 1997 before leaving the team to play for Washington. He returned to the Bay Area to finish his career, playing with the 49ers in 2000-01 and the Raiders in 2003.