Judge orders new trial in decade-old murder case, as scrutiny of Oakland detective grows

OAKLAND — An Alameda County judge this month overturned another decade-old murder conviction that was secured with the help of Phong Tran, the veteran Oakland homicide detective accused of coercing and paying off witnesses throughout his prolific career.

The ruling by Judge Thomas Stevens marks the third upended guilty verdict tied to the longtime Oakland police officer, who is awaiting trial on several bribery and perjury charges. The burgeoning scandal has already led to multiple lenient plea deals and case dismissals tied to the detective’s work, along with a review of more than 200 homicide cases he either led or touched.

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The latest decision means an Oakland man, 50-year-old Steven Buggs, will get a new trial in the September 2012 slaying of his childhood friend, Lester Young, who was shot dead inside Young’s East Oakland home.

Earlier this fall, Judge Stevens ordered an evidentiary hearing over claims that Tran’s investigation was guided by stereotypes of Black men, potentially violating the state’s Racial Justice Act. The 2020 law has sought to address racial bias throughout the criminal justice system by allowing defendants a new avenue to challenge certain prosecutions and convictions.

While investigating the killing, Tran allegedly told Buggs that an all-white jury could see him as a “big scary Black guy,” and that Buggs “might as well squeeze that noose a little tighter” if he didn’t confess to the shooting, according to court filings.

In a statement, Alameda County’s public defender urged District Attorney Ursula Jones Dickson to dismiss the case and release Buggs from custody “immediately.” He is currently incarcerated at the state prison in Vacaville.

“How much more does the prosecution need in order to do the right thing here?” asked the public defender, Brendon Woods. He added that Tran’s “dishonesty and racism have permanently tainted this case.”

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“I hope the community is paying attention to how this District Attorney’s Office is handling this and other cases,” Woods said.

Attempts to reach Tran’s attorney were not immediately successful Wednesday.

The allegations in the Buggs case mark the latest fallout of felony perjury and bribery charges filed against Tran in 2023, which claim the detective paid off and coerced a witness in a 2011 murder case. Convictions against the two men in that case — both of whom are Black — were later quietly overturned by the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office, after a key witness claimed she received thousands of dollars from Tran to lie on the stand.

Stevens ultimately found that the sheer amount of alleged misconduct by Tran — all of which had transpired before the jury rendered their verdict in 2015 — left him no choice but to order a new trial.

To toss the conviction, the judge said in a court filing that he only needed to find it was “more likely than not” that at least one juror would have changed their mind, had they known about the growing number of misconduct allegations against Tran.

The judge cited the same allegations at the heart of Tran’s charges. His case stems from the 2011 murder of 23-year-old Charles Butler Jr., who was fatally shot while arguing over a parking spot near his North Oakland home.

Convictions against two men — Giovonte Douglas and Cartier Hunter — were upended when an unhoused woman told investigators that she allegedly received thousands of dollars from Tran to testify against the men. The payments included a $5,000 cash payment that Tran allegedly made approximately 30 minutes after the woman finished testifying at Douglas and Hunter’s 2016 murder trial, according to court testimony.

Stevens also cited more allegations in two other homicide cases, during which Tran allegedly again paid off witnesses to testify and use statements he fed to them.

They include the murder investigations into Ezell Edwards and Anthony Hoskins, who were convicted in the 2012 killing of Brandon McDaniel over an alleged federal income tax fraud scheme. In that case, a man claimed Tran offered him money in exchange for favorable testimony, according to Stevens’ ruling.

Stevens also referenced the prosecution of Darius Esters, who was jailed in the 2012 killing of Tattiaunn Turner outside an East Oakland store. Another witness said she received money from Tran and felt “pressured and bribed” to falsely blame Esters for the killing, Stevens ruling said.

“While any one statement, standing alone, might not tip the balance, their cumulative force undermines the reliability of the verdict,” Stevens wrote in his ruling.

Tran’s credibility took center stage during Buggs’ trial in 2015, when prosecutors and defense attorneys sparred over the detective’s methods for identifying suspects in the case.

Tran — who had been a homicide detective for just a year while investigating Young’s death — originally obtained an arrest warrant for another man, after the only other individual in the room during the killing identified that person as the shooter. The detective’s focus later shifted to Buggs after receiving a tip from either an anonymous caller or confidential informant, court records show.

“In a case where the jurors were concerned about the accuracy of the identifications and the integrity of Tran’s methods, evidence that Tran had allegedly engaged in misconduct in other investigations would likely have carried weight,” Stevens wrote.

The ruling comes as Tran’s criminal case moves at a glacial pace.

An Alameda County judge in June 2023 found that enough evidence existed for the case to go before a jury. However, no trail date has been set. And questions have swirled about the case’s future under District Attorney Ursula Jones Dickson — herself a former judge who has worked to unwind the legacy of her recalled predecessor, Pamela Price.

Often, that work has centered on ending the prosecutions of law enforcement officers, which had been a pillar of Price’s tenure. Jones Dickson has dismissed criminal cases against several law enforcement officers charged in at least two deaths at the Santa Rita Jail. Just this week, Jones Dickson’s office also asked a judge to dismiss the manslaughter case against Jason Fletcher in the 2020 shooting death of Steven Taylor.

The Alameda County District Attorney’s Office did not respond to a request by this news outlet for comment on Stevens’ rulings.

Jakob Rodgers is a senior breaking news reporter. Call, text or send him an encrypted message via Signal at 510-390-2351, or email him at jrodgers@bayareanewsgroup.com.