Judge cites ‘Squaw Valley’ as evidence in Native man’s Fresno racial justice case
A Native American man who has been convicted of murder gained a legal win Friday in a racial justice case after a judge cited Fresno County’s history of racism as a factor in ordering the Fresno County District Attorney’s Office to turn over evidence it sought to withhold.
Judge Alvin M. Harrell III sided with attorneys for Douglas “Chief” Ray Stankewitz when he found the defense met its burden to be given access to discovery evidence, which may include demographic information on cases in which the Fresno County DA charged defendants with murder going back to 1972.
Exactly what the defense wants will be unclear until after the judge issues the official order, according to Curtis Briggs, an attorney for Stankewitz.
“It’s monumental, and there’s also moral reasons, but they will carry over into the future hearings,” Briggs said after the hearing. “We just had a judge in a very conservative county agree with us, and then go further and make factual findings that racism has occurred in Fresno. That’s something that the prosecution hasn’t wanted to acknowledge.”
Stankewitz, a Monache man, was 19 when first convicted in 1978 and has been through multiple re-trials after prosecutors accused him of killing Theresa Greybeal, a 22-year-old white woman. He has maintained his innocence, saying he did not pull the trigger.
The victory for him came through the California Racial Justice Act of 2020, which was signed into law by Gov. Gavin Newsom in the wake of the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police.
Prosecutors argued Friday the defense had not met its burden and offered little if any new evidence.
While explaining his decision, Harrell noted the law does not ask for any of the facts in the case to be weighed but rather for a defense attorney to show that racism was plausibly was a factor.
“This is a fairly low bar to gain access to the discovery,” Harrell said. “The court is going to find the defense has met their burden.”
The judge granted the request with parameters around how much is reasonably available, including third-party privacy rights and that the request adequately describes the evidence sought along with other factors.
Fresno County judge cites Fresno County racism
Harrell pointed to documented examples Fresno County has shown racism historically, and one as recent as three weeks ago. The Fresno County District Attorney’s Office wrote in a news release on May 8 about the sentencing of a killer in which they described the Yokuts Valley in which he lives as “Squaw Valley,” using a racist term for Native American women.
The state Legislature passed a bill in 2022 enacting the town’s name change to Yokuts Valley. Fresno County fought the change, but ultimately gave up after losing an appeal.
“The fact that this was a public statement which went without correction by any Fresno District Attorney management official shows why the Racial Justice Act challenges both explicit and implicit bias because this is discriminatory whether the person who made the statement intended it or not,” the defense wrote in arguments.
Harrell also pointed to arguments the defense made about Fresno City College’s former Euless Baseball Park, which was named after a known leader of the Ku Klux Klan in Fresno for about 60 years until the school moved to change it in 2020. He cited other history the defense used as arguments, including archived stories from The Bee about Klan activity and California’s history of discrimination against Native Americans.
The judge’s decision to point to a history of racism came as something of a surprise to Laura Wass, an activist based in the San Joaquin Valley who is Central California director of the American Indian Movement and who was in the courtroom.
“When I walk in a courtroom, I expect prejudice, pure and simple,” she said after the hearing. “(The judge) was truthful, reasonable, very fair, and he listened to the facts.”
The District Attorney’s Office issued a statement late Friday to The Bee: “As a matter of longstanding policy, the Fresno County District Attorney’s Office does not comment on the merits of pending litigation outside of court and will continue to address these issues through the judicial process.”
Douglas Stankewitz convicted of murder
Stankewitz was the longest tenured condemned inmate at San Quentin State Prison until he was taken off of death row. He is now at California Men’s Colony outside San Luis Obispo, and will turn 68 on Sunday.
Prosecutors have said Stankewitz plotted with three others to rob and kidnap Greybeal in Modesto. Greybeal was driven to Fresno before she was shot and killed.
Stankewitz’s case has been litigated from Superior Court to the state Supreme Court. The case was tried twice, and both resulted in a guilty verdict. After the first trial, the California Supreme Court reversed the conviction because Stankewitz’s competency to stand trial was not addressed.
He was found competent prior to the second trial, and he was convicted again. His attorneys have noted in the second trial the only known Native American juror was questioned and excused.
In 2009, a federal judge affirmed Stankewitz’s guilt but reversed his death sentence. Three years later, an appeals court agreed with the decision to throw out Stankewitz’s death penalty sentence saying the jury should have heard evidence of Stankewitz’s troubled childhood.
This story was originally published May 29, 2026 at 4:18 PM.
