California courts railroaded a Black bus driver. Here’s why Gavin Newsom should free him

The most important thing to know about Quinton Watts is that even the district attorney who put him behind bars now believes he deserves his freedom.

“He did not do this on purpose,” said John Poyner, the former Colusa County district attorney who prosecuted Watts and secured a sentence of 26 years. “This was not an intentional act in the end. He’s paid his price.”

Watts was behind the wheel of a bus called the Gambler’s Special when it crashed in 2008, killing 11 passengers on their way to a casino in Colusa County. After the crash, both the press and prosecutors portrayed Watts as an irresponsible bus driver with a long criminal rap sheet whose carelessness resulted in death.

In reality, Watts suffers from a seizure disorder that likely explains why he blacked out and has no memory of the crash. A Stockton physician’s assistant was later disciplined for clearing Watts to drive despite his disorder, but jurors never heard about Watts’ seizures. Poyner, the former district attorney, told The Sacramento Bee he never knew about the seizures.

It took the jury only four hours to reach a verdict.

“Jurors found Watts guilty of 11 counts of felony vehicular manslaughter with ‘gross negligence’ in the crash,” wrote Sacramento Bee investigative reporter Jason Pohl. “They also found him guilty of 21 counts of causing great bodily injury, a sentencing enhancement. The judge sent Watts to prison for 26 years and four months. Nine of those years are for the great bodily injury enhancements.”

In a story called “Blackout on Lone Star Road,” Pohl detailed the official errors and missteps that led to Watts’ imprisonment for the last 11 years.

“Prosecutors relied on dubious scientific claims about sleep deprivation and diabetes as they rushed the case through the justice system,” wrote Pohl. “State investigators initially claimed Watts might have been drunk — a false allegation that remains etched in the minds of those who remember the wreck. Authorities later theorized that Watts, who is Black, fell asleep while driving.”

Watts’ race also may have played a role in the prosecution’s strategy to convict him. Pohl, who reviewed thousands of pages of court and medical documents in pursuit of the story, found that two potential Black jurors were dismissed from hearing the case.

“There were no Black jurors to hear the case against Watts in the rural Colusa County courthouse,” wrote Pohl. “A judge dismissed one potential juror who was Black for showing bias against Watts. Prosecutors dismissed another after questioning the person intently about their race and ability to judge Watts fairly.”

“The defendant in this case is African American. Would that cause you any discomfort having to judge an African American person?” Craig Datig, a special prosecutor from Riverside County who was assisting as part of a vehicular homicide task force from the state district attorney’s association, asked one Black prospective juror.

“No,” the prospective juror replied. “It’s the offense that we’re doing here, not what he looks like.”

Datig later dismissed the prospective juror without explanation.

“None of the other prospective jurors was asked such direct questions about their racial biases, wrote Pohl. “By 2 p.m., attorneys had seated the 12-person jury. None of them was Black.”

To make matters worse, Watts’ public defender — hired on contract to defend criminal cases in Colusa — did not seem too interested in protecting his client’s best interests. The lawyer “took pride in boiling the case down to a simple question about negligence that could get jurors back to their day jobs by the end of the week,” wrote Pohl. Later, an attorney working on Watts’ appeal would call his original public defender, Albert Smith, “ineffective.”

Unfortunately for Watts, his public defender only called one witness, a paramedic. He never called on Watts’ ex-wife, Colene Robinson, who drove to Colusa for the trial and would have shared Watts’ history of seizures with the jury.

Watts, a Stockton native, did not lead a perfect life. He’d had many run-ins with the law and done time in prison by the time he found himself behind the wheel of the Gambler’s Special. Yet Watts was trying to put his life back together, hoping to make $700 a week as a bus driver, when the tragic accident took place. Though he was demonized as a negligent man who might have been too drunk or too sleepy to drive, the jury never heard about his history of seizures.

Instead, California’s justice system railroaded a Black man, convicting him without giving him the benefit of a proper defense and imposing a sentence even harsher than prosecutors had requested. Nothing can bring back the 11 Hmong and Iu Mien people who died in the bus crash on Lone Star Road in 2008. But justice is not served through this grave injustice against Watts, who did not receive a fair trial and is also a victim in this case.

Quinton Watts has been punished enough. We urge Gov. Gavin Newsom to review the facts of this case and commute his sentence.

This story was originally published December 29, 2020 at 5:00 AM.