OAKLAND — In a case full of twists, an East Palo Alto man has been acquitted of first-degree murder for allegedly beating a sleeping man to death, but jurors were unable to reach a verdict on remaining counts.
That means 38-year-old Joshua Stroman is still facing pending second-degree murder charges, along with the potential to be convicted of lesser offenses of voluntary or involuntary manslaughter, court records show. A new trial date has not yet been set.
Jurors were able to reach a not guilty verdict only on first-degree murder, but after that declared they were hopelessly deadlocked and a mistrial was declared. The jury foreman said in court they were split 7-5, but not which way the majority was leaning.
Stroman is charged with murdering 40-year-old Kenyon Graham, who was found dead with massive head trauma about 12:44 a.m. on Dec. 13, 2021 as he slept on the ground in the 500 block of 45th Street near Telegraph Avenue in North Oakland. Video surveillance from a nearby fast food restaurant helped identify Stroman as the attacker, police said at the time.
But what seemed like a straightforward homicide case took some unexpected twists as the investigation progressed. Police soon learned that it was Stroman who called 911 to report the beating, and that he later made attempts to check on Graham’s condition.
Then, after police brought Stroman in for questioning, he allegedly confessed to the attack but denied that he was trying to kill or even seriously hurt Graham. Instead, he described Graham as a friend, adding the two would occasionally have sex that was “both at times consensual and nonconsensual,” according to the preliminary hearing testimony of Oakland police Detective Gerald Moriarty.
On the morning of the killing, Stroman told police that he struck Graham with the skateboard not to hurt or kill him, but to start a dialogue, Moriarty testified.
“He had also said that he wasn’t doing it to intentionally severely hurt him, but to merely get his attention and provoke a reaction so that they could talk,” Moriarty said on the stand at the April 2023 preliminary hearing.
During trial, Stroman’s deputy public defender argued that the homicide was an involuntary manslaughter, not murder.
In the more than two years between Stroman’s arrest and the trial, his case was delayed when he was briefly found mentally incompetent to stand trial, but criminal proceedings resumed after his competency was deemed restored, court records show.
Stroman remains in Santa Rita Jail and cannot be bailed out, records show.