Background
Anthony George Bankston, a member of the Nine Deuce Bishops Blood gang in Los Angeles, was convicted in two separate guilt phase trials of the 1991 first degree murder of Benson Jones (a rival Crip gang member shot in Blood territory near the intersection of Beach and Firestone), the attempted murder of Benjamin Jones, the first degree murder of Jesus Sanchez in a drive-by shooting, and assault with a firearm on Linda Jones. A jury found true the multiple-murder special circumstance and returned a death verdict.
During the penalty phase, the prosecutor’s closing argument drew a contrast between Bankston’s courtroom demeanor and his conduct on the street. She described Bankston as wearing “a nice little tie and a suit” in court, then told a parable about a Bengal tiger: a journalist sees a lethargic tiger at the zoo and is unimpressed, but when taken to India, encounters the same species in the wild with “muscles all flexed out” and “claws out.” The prosecutor urged the jury: “don’t be fooled”—the “real Anthony Bankston” is the one who “kills without remorse.” The prosecutor also called Bankston a “thug,” a “killing machine,” and described him as having “murder in his heart” and “evil in his soul.”
While this appeal was pending, the Legislature enacted the California Racial Justice Act of 2020 (Penal Code § 745; the “RJA”), which prohibits seeking or obtaining a conviction or sentence “on the basis of race, ethnicity, or national origin.” The Act specifically defines “racially discriminatory language” to include “language that compares the defendant to an animal.” Subsequent amendments made the RJA retroactively applicable to cases on appeal.
The Court’s Holding
The California Supreme Court reversed the death sentence and remanded for new penalty phase proceedings, but affirmed the guilt judgment in all other respects. Justice Kruger wrote for the majority.
The court held that the prosecutor’s Bengal tiger parable in her penalty phase closing argument constituted racially discriminatory language under the RJA. The Legislature’s own findings in enacting the RJA specifically cited cases where prosecutors compared defendants of color to Bengal tigers as examples of the kind of conduct the Act was designed to eliminate. The Attorney General conceded the violation and agreed it could not be shown harmless beyond a reasonable doubt.
Critically, the court rejected several of Bankston’s other RJA claims relating to the guilt phase, including challenges to the prosecutor’s use of the word “articulate” and a gang expert’s references to “Black gangs.” The court found these did not, in context, constitute implicit appeals to racial bias. The decision thus draws a nuanced line: not every race-adjacent reference violates the RJA, but comparing a Black defendant to a predatory animal in a closing argument urging the jury to impose death crosses it clearly.
Key Takeaways
- The Bengal tiger parable—a rhetorical device used by prosecutors for decades to contrast a defendant’s courtroom demeanor with alleged criminal conduct—is now squarely prohibited under the California Racial Justice Act when directed at a defendant of color. The Legislature identified this specific metaphor in its findings as an example of racially coded advocacy.
- The RJA applies retroactively to cases on direct appeal, allowing defendants convicted decades ago to challenge racially discriminatory language used at trial. This is the first California Supreme Court decision to reverse a death sentence on RJA grounds.
- The court adopted a contextual approach to RJA claims: language must be evaluated as an objective observer would understand it in the full context of the trial. Terms like “articulate” or references to gang culture may be problematic in some contexts but are not per se violations.
Why It Matters
This is a landmark decision—the first time the California Supreme Court has reversed a death sentence under the Racial Justice Act. It sends a clear message that prosecutors must purge animal metaphors and other racially coded language from their advocacy, particularly in capital cases. The decision is likely to generate new RJA claims in pending capital appeals and may prompt district attorney offices statewide to review their training materials and closing argument practices.
Read alongside the companion People v. Barrera (filed the same day), which reserves certain RJA questions that Bankston does not reach, the opinion signals that the court is carefully building a framework for evaluating RJA claims—one that takes the statute’s anti-discrimination purpose seriously while resisting categorical rules that would sweep in every race-adjacent comment. For California criminal practitioners on both sides, this framework will define the landscape of RJA litigation for years to come.