Updated on May 12
A Santa Clara County judge on Thursday disqualified District Attorney Jeff Rosen and his entire office from retrying the felony case against five pro-Palestinian protesters who occupied Stanford University’s president’s office in June 2024, ruling that Rosen crossed a legal line when suggesting in a campaign message that the protest was antisemitic.
“Rosen is allowed to take a strong stance against crime in the community, against antisemitism. But caution and care need to be taken when utilizing active litigation in campaign communication,” Judge Kelley Paul said from the bench.
The judge said that Rosen erred when publicly labeling the incident antisemitic when it was not charged as a hate crime.
“This case is not a hate crime,” Paul said. “The characterization of the prosecution as a fight against antisemitism runs afoul of case law.”
In an email to J. on Thursday, the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s office wrote that while it “disagrees with the judge’s ruling, we respect it.”
The ruling hands the case to the California Attorney General’s Office, which will decide whether to retry the defendants — German Gonzalez, Maya Burke, Taylor McCann, Hunter Taylor-Black and Amy Zhai — or drop the charges.
In a joint statement, the Jewish Community Relations Council Bay Area and Jewish Silicon Valley wrote that they are “deeply troubled” by Paul’s decision and that the case “must proceed.”
“This decision uniquely targets minority prosecutors, suggesting they are incapable of pursuing justice in cases perceived to be impacting their own communities,” the statement reads. “[It] risks reinforcing longstanding antisemitic prejudices and invites future defendants to weaponize a prosecutor’s identity against them.”
The five protesters face felony vandalism and conspiracy counts stemming from a June 2024 protest in which 13 people broke into Stanford’s executive offices and caused an estimated $300,000 in damages. A jury deadlocked in February, splitting 9-3 on the vandalism count and 8-4 on conspiracy. Rosen quickly announced his plan to retry them.
The disqualification motion was filed by deputy public defender Avi Singh, who argued that Rosen had compromised his office’s neutrality.
Rosen, who is Jewish, had featured the prosecution on a campaign fundraising page titled “DA Rosen Fighting Anti-Semitism,” alongside a donation button.
Singh argued the fundraising campaign falsely implied that the defendants were antisemitic. None was charged with a hate crime.
Rosen, who has spoken publicly about his commitment to fighting antisemitism and supporting Israel, has denied any conflict of interest.
In her decision, Paul pointed to Rosen’s remarks in a March 2025 speech he gave for the San Jose Hillel, about a month before his office filed charges against the protesters. A video of the speech is linked on the “Fighting Anti-Semitism” page on his campaign website.
In the speech, Rosen equated antisemitism and “anti-Americanism,” a phrase that Deputy District Attorney Robert Baker also used to describe the conduct of the protesters during the trial’s closing arguments. Paul ruled that the similarities in the language disqualified the entire DA’s office from the case, not just Rosen.
The California Attorney General’s Office opposed the recusal motion.
Rosen faces a challenger in the June primary election: Daniel Chung, a prosecutor in the DA’s office who had called on Rosen ahead of the trial to reduce the charges against the protesters to misdemeanors.