In a first, California Supreme Court reverses a death sentence under new racial justice law

The California Supreme Court this week reversed the death sentence of a Los Angeles Bloods gang member convicted of killing a rival Crip in the early 1990s because a prosecutor compared him to a dangerous animal, the first time a death sentence has been overturned under the 2020 Racial Justice Act.

Anthony Bankston represented himself in court in 1991. A jury found him guilty. During the penalty phase of the trial, a prosecutor compared Bankston — appearing in a suit and tie — to a Bengal tiger at the zoo.

The prosecutor’s story was that a journalist observed a Bengal tiger in a zoo, and was told by a hunter “that’s not a Bengal tiger.” Instead, the journalist traveled to India, where he found a tiger, “all flexed out, he sees the claws out, he sees the fangs, . . . he hears the growl.”

The hunter tells him, “now you see a Bengal tiger.” The story was supposed to illustrate that Bankston in court was not the same person as Bankston on the street, whom the prosecutor described as “a killing machine.”

The California Supreme Court justices found that comparison prejudicial in a unanimous ruling with two concurrences. They reversed Bankston’s death sentence but the murder conviction still stands, meaning the high court sent Bankston’s sentencing back down to a trial court.

It was one of four decisions the high court released this week that stemmed from claims under the Racial Justice Act, which allows prisoners to appeal their convictions if they believe racial bias tainted their trials.

The court upheld death sentences for two of the men: Alex Demolle, who was convicted of raping and murdering an 11-year-old girl; and Marcos Esquivel Barrera, who was sentenced to death after being convicted of murdering two of his children.

In the fourth case, the court modified rulings against two condemned prisoners of Southeast Asian descent, but not because of their Racial Justice Act claims.

A spokesperson for the Judicial Council of California confirmed that Bankston’s case was the first reversal of a death sentence by the California Supreme Court because of violations of the Racial Justice Act.

According to the ruling in Bankston’s appeal, the Bengal tiger parable has come up several times in different cases, so much so that the high court called it a “well worn tale.”

In a 2010 case, the high court found that the Bengal tiger metaphor was not a prejudicial statement about a defendant’s Vietnamese heritage. In a 2018 case, a defendant said the Bengal tiger story was used to “dehumanize” him, an argument the California Supreme Court justices rejected.

But in 2020, the Legislature passed the Racial Justice Act, which included a prohibition on certain animal images that pose a risk of appealing to racial bias. The law itself specifically mentions the Bengal tiger example.

“In light of the passage of the RJA, we now make clear that, whatever the intent behind telling the story may be, the Bengal tiger story should no longer be told in California courtrooms,” Justice Leondra Kruger wrote for the majority. “There is no reason to permit prosecutors to continue running the risk of appealing to biases that undermine the very foundation of a system of equal justice, simply to make an unremarkable point about a defendant’s behavior outside a controlled courtroom setting.”

Comparisons of defendants to animals do not automatically qualify as violations of the Racial Justice Act. A case in the 4th District Court of Appeals this year found that comparing a defendant to a dog left in a car with a Slurpee was a fair comparison point to the notion of circumstantial evidence.

The Bankston ruling similarly noted that references like “eager beaver,” “happy as a clam,” “free as a bird,” or “quiet as a mouse” would not rise to the level of Racial Justice Act violations.

Bankston, who is Black, was convicted of two first-degree murder charges and one count of attempted murder for separate shootings in 1991. He was convicted of shooting and killing Benson Jones and attempting to murder Benson’s brother, Benjamin.

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.