A judge in Santa Clara County declared a mistrial Friday in the felony trial of five current and former Stanford University students charged over pro-Palestinian protests in 2024 that led to the barricading of the defendants inside the university president and provost executive offices. The case was prosecuted as a criminal matter in Santa Clara County, where prosecutors and defense attorneys disputed whether the demonstrators’ conduct amounted to lawful dissent or crossed into punishable wrongdoing.
The trial followed protests that erupted on campuses across the country amid the Israel-Hamas war, with student demonstrators calling for universities to stop doing business with Israel or companies tied to its war efforts against Hamas. In the Stanford case, prosecutors argued that during the June 5, 2024 occupation of the executive offices, the defendants spray-painted the building, broke windows and furniture, disabled security cameras, and splattered a red liquid described as fake blood on items throughout the offices.
Defense attorneys said the actions were protected speech and that prosecutors did not show the defendants had intent to damage property. They also argued that the students used protective gear and barricaded themselves inside the offices out of fear of being injured by police and campus security.
The jury returned mixed results: it convicted the defendants of vandalism, 9 to 3, and it also convicted them of conspiracy to trespass, 8 to 4. After five days of deliberation, the jurors said they could not reach verdicts on the remaining counts.
Judge Hanley Chew asked each juror whether additional time deliberating would help break the impasse, and all answered “No.” Chen, acting in the court’s role during the proceedings, then told the jury that “It appears that this jury is hopelessly deadlocked, and I’m now declaring a mistrial in counts one and two,” and dismissed the jurors. The judge’s declaration left the case headed back into the legal process rather than concluding with the convictions alone.
Santa Clara County District Attorney Jeff Rosen said the prosecution would seek a new trial. In a statement, Rosen said the case involved “a group of people who destroyed someone else’s property and caused hundreds of thousands of dollars in damage,” adding that “That is against the law and that is why we will retry the case.”
As the mistrial was announced, the students sat on a bench in the courtroom, with some wearing kaffiyehs, and they did not show a visible reaction. Germán González, a sophomore at Stanford when he was arrested, told The Associated Press later that “No matter what happens, we will continue to fight tooth and nail for as long as possible, because at the end of the day, this is for Palestine.”
Authorities initially arrested and charged 12 people in connection with the events. One defendant pleaded no contest under an agreement that, if young people completed probation, allowed for dismissal of the case and sealing of records; that person also testified for the prosecution, which authorities said led to a grand jury indictment of the remaining defendants in October. Six defendants accepted pretrial plea deals or diversion programs, and the remaining five pleaded not guilty and went to trial.
If convicted, the defendants faced up to three years in prison and restitution exceeding $300,000. The mistrial and the likely retrial come as arrests and felony charging decisions related to campus protests varied widely across the country, with about 3,200 people arrested in 2024 nationwide and many criminal cases ultimately dismissed.