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The lawyer for a Berkeley teenager who was charged with battery on a police officer and resisting arrest in connection with a June 2 traffic stop that allegedly escalated into violence said after a court hearing Wednesday he had worked out a deal with prosecutors to have the charges dismissed if his client maintains a clean record for the next year. 

The case was tried in Oakland Superior Court in November but ended in a hung jury. 

In the June incident, Keith Stephens, who was a senior at Berkeley High at the time, is alleged to have punched and scuffled with two Berkeley police officers following a routine traffic stop after being urged on by an unruly crowd at Eighth Street and Channing Way in west Berkeley. Stephens’ aunt and sister were also arrested on grounds they incited the confrontation, but were never charged.  

Superior Court Judge Thomas M. Reardon on Wednesday ordered Stephens to return to court in exactly one year, on December 13, 2001.  

“The only thing he has to do is obey all laws and the case will be over,” attorney Arthur Mitchell said after the brief hearing. Mitchell called the agreement with the District Attorney a “deferred prosecution.”  

Deputy District Attorney Alyce Sandbach confirmed in an interview Thursday that the DA’s office had agreed to dismiss the case if Stephens is not charged with additional criminal conduct for the next year.  

“It’s a matter of resources,” Sandbach explained. “We have a lot of pressure to deal with cases that are really serious,” she said. “If he (Stephens) keeps his nose clean, it’s dismissed,” she said. If Stephens, a 19 year old who is now attending San Francisco City College is merely arrested, that would not be grounds to reinstate the charges, said Sandbach. “Practically speaking, I can’t remember someone having charges reinstated just for an arrest,” she said.  

In the months leading up to the November trial, Mitchell had argued his client was a victim of racial profiling and claimed that officers involved in the incident had lied to cover up their own “improper conduct.” Mitchell is a partner in the Oakland law office of civil rights attorney John Burris, who specializes in police abuse cases. Burris said earlier this year he was contemplating a civil suit against the Berkeley Police Department on Stephens’ behalf.  

But Berkeley City Attorney Manuela Albuquerque said Thursday that no civil suit had been filed against the city or the police department. “There has not been any lawsuit,” she said. “We don’t have any such case.”  

Burris did not return a phone call Thursday seeking comment about a possible civil suit.  

In court papers filed before the November trial, however, attorney Arthur Mitchell charged that three Berkeley police officers involved in Stephens’ arrest had fabricated information to cover up abuses. Mitchell claimed that the officers’ use of excessive force was “not an isolated incident but part of a pattern of behavior.”  

In July, Berkeley Superior Court Judge Jennie Rhine agreed with a request by the Berkeley City Attorney’s office to seal court records pertaining to the personnel files of Berkeley police officers Ted Postolaki, Stan Libed and Tim Gardner. Part of the criminal court file in the Stephens case is sealed and marked “confidential.”  

According to papers Mitchell filed with the court, the officers “struck (Stephens) in the arms, legs, forehead, and back with police batons without provocation.” Mitchell further alleged that after Stephens was taken to the police station, officer Ted Postolaki made Stephens sign a false statement confessing to the charges. Mitchell argued that since Stephens had been hit in the head he was not coherent at the time he signed the statement.  

But reports authored by officers Gardner, Libed and Postolaki provide a different account of the streetside confrontation last summer.  

Gardner said in a police report that after he got out of his patrol car to conduct a routine traffic stop for expired tags on Stephens’ late model Dodge, the stout Berkeley High running back rushed at him, punched him twice in the face and pinned him to the ground while a mob of 10 to 12 onlookers taunted Gardner and partner Stan Libed. Gardner described the crowd as presenting an “extreme threat to our lives.” 

Officer Libed wrote in a separate report following the arrest that he was repeatedly pushed and pulled by members of the crowd. “Gardner and I could not subdue the still attacking (Stephens) amid the hostile crowd which was all around us so we had to resort to baton strikes,” he wrote in his report. 

Stephens, who graduated from Berkeley High School shortly after his arrest, is now a running back on the San Francisco City College football team. “It’s crazy,” Stephens said Wednesday of his six-month legal odyssey. “I missed 16 days of school last month.” 

After the morning court appearance before Judge Reardon, defense attorney Mitchell met briefly with Stephens and a relative in the broad hallway outside the courtroom, and later spoke with a reporter. “We think that Keith’s education is more important than wasting any more time coming to court,” he said.