An appellate court panel has overturned an ex-con’s five-year state prison sentence for threatening a pregnant Black woman at a Fullerton bus station while spewing racial epithets at her, finding that a judge abused his discretion in imposing the term.
The three-justice panel from California’s 4th District Court of Appeal agreed with the Orange County District Attorney’s Office’s contention that Judge Roger Robbins erred last year in striking Tyson Theodore Mayfield’s 2005 conviction for assault with a deadly weapon when he was being sentenced on the September 2018 case, under which he could have faced up to 38 years and four months to life in prison.
The appellate court justices — who found that the trial court “abused its discretion in offering him (Mayfield) a reduced sentence” — on Tuesday ordered the case to be sent back to the trial court to allow the Mission Viejo man to “withdraw his guilty plea and plead anew.”
In exchange for the judge’s offer of a five-year prison sentence, Mayfield pleaded guilty to one felony count each of hate crime criminal threats with present ability to commit violent injury and criminal threats, along with a misdemeanor count of petty theft.
“The district attorney contends the dismissal constitutes an abuse of discretion and we agree. Completely. Everything about respondent’s crime and his record shouts for the application of the Three Strikes law,” Acting Presiding Justice William W. Bedsworth wrote on behalf of the panel in its 17-page ruling. “There is nothing about his criminal history or personal character that suggests he somehow falls outside the spirit of the Three Strikes law.”
The panel noted that Mayfield has “an extensive criminal record that includes multiple acts of violence against racial minorities” and that he was charged in the current case with threatening to make a pregnant Black woman “drop” her unborn baby while she was waiting at the bus station in September 2018.
“The members of this panel have enjoyed long careers in the practice of law. We’ve seen enough to make it difficult to shock us. But not, as it turns out, impossible,” Bedsworth wrote, noting that Mayfield was facing a mandatory 25-year-to-life prison sentence as a third-striker.
The appellate court panel noted that the judge had focused primarily on the nature of the crimes in the current case, in which he did not use a weapon or injure the woman, along with determining that the conviction 14 years earlier was too remote to use against Mayfield.
With Associate Justices Richard D. Fybel and David A. Thompson concurring, Bedsworth wrote that Mayfield’s “unrelenting criminal behavior since suffering his first strike conviction in 2005 demonstrates him to be an uncharged man, with a stubborn character and no discernible prospects for reform.”
“Suffice it to say, we do not believe the nature of respondent’s current offenses is in any way mitigating, let alone a sufficient basis for striking his prior strike conviction,” Bedsworth wrote. “The offenses were not as serious as some crimes, to be sure, but considered in light of respondent’s criminal history — and with a complete and utter absence of any mitigating `character and prospects’ evidence — they represent the continuation of respondent’s disturbing penchant for victimizing innocent minorities in our community.”
Prosecutors had vehemently opposed the judge’s offer of a five-year prison sentence, with District Attorney Todd Spitzer appearing repeatedly in front of Robbins to argue against the term.
“This decision echoes the outrage that I expressed to the trial court over allowing such an evil person the opportunity to continue to victimize innocent people because of the color of their skin,” Spitzer said in a statement.
He cited the “traumatic impact” the crime had on the victim — a young, pregnant woman “who literally ran for her life and the life of her unborn child.”
The county’s top prosecutor noted the defendant has tattoos depicting a swastika and SS lightning bolts, telling the court that there is “just no question he is a racist.”
Spitzer argued that Mayfield indiscriminately targets people on the street “because he doesn’t like the way they look” and questioned whether a five-year prison sentence would “protect society against someone so evil.”
Members of Christ Our Redeemer Church in Irvine, the NAACP, the Orange County Human Relations Commission and the Anti-Defamation League attended court hearings in support of the victim.
The woman, who was eight months pregnant, was waiting for her boyfriend when she overheard Mayfield telling two other men that he hates Blacks and that he “gets his kicks” by hurting pregnant Black women, according to the ruling.
Mayfield subsequently yelled racial epithets at the woman and told her, “I’m going to make sure you drop your baby,” prompting the frightened woman to defend herself with pepper spray, according to the ruling.
Mayfield then grabbed the woman’s backpack, left the scene momentarily and then came running back toward her with his fists balled up before she ran from the bus station, the justices noted.
The woman — who told the judge that she had to “run for (her) life” — went into a nearby cafe and called police, who arrested him soon afterward.
Mayfield’s attorney, Paul Rogers, said last year that the “great thing about living here in our country is we have certain liberties to express ourselves to a certain degree how we want. No matter how unpleasant we might think some peoples’ views are, racism isn’t a crime. Unfortunately, some people get confused by that. I love this country and our constitution and I’m glad to fight for its protections and to live under the freedoms it provides.”