An attorney for a double-murder defendant announced in court Friday he will ask the state Supreme Court to overrule an appellate court ruling denying his request to boot an Orange County Superior Court judge from the suspect’s death penalty case.
Daniel Patrick Wozniak’s attorneys have alleged his rights may have been violated by a jailhouse informant in much the same way as convicted mass killer Scott Dekraai, who convinced another judge to have the Orange County District Attorney’s Office removed from prosecuting his case, a ruling that is under appeal.
Wozniak’s attorneys from the Orange County Public Defender’s Office argued that Orange County Superior Court Judge John Conley demonstrated bias when he argued against his dismissal from the case.
The Orange County District Attorney’s Office countered that attorneys for Wozniak have not provided any factual basis to disqualify Conley.
Senior Deputy District Attorney Matt Murphy revived complaints in court today that his counterpart, Assistant Public Defender Scott Sanders, still hasn’t complied with formal requests to provide evidence the defense has collected so far or to provide a list of expert witnesses.
Sanders said he doesn’t have a mental health expert in the case and there’s nothing to turn over to prosecutors.
“We’re not holding back,” Sanders said. “It’s just not there.”
Murphy reiterated his argument that, unlike in the Dekraai case, that there is no evidence of outrageous governmental misconduct because the Orange County Sheriff’s Department was not part of the prosecution’s team.
Costa Mesa police have been in charge of investigating the case, Murphy said.
The only time Murphy’s team has interacted with the sheriff was when the defense ignored requests for information backing a claim Wozniak’s jailers conspired to have him appear on MSNBC’s “Lockup” program to damage his case, Murphy argued.
“So we had to conduct our own investigation” and find out who produced the segment, Murphy said.
The producer of the program, Suzanne Ali, has denied that Wozniak’s jailers helped arrange for the interview. Ali told investigators she picked Wozniak out of a crowd of inmates.
“She saw the defendant in the chow line with a jumpsuit too small and he flashed her an actor’s smile,” Murphy said.
Attorneys for NBC and 44 Blue Productions, which produced “Lockup,” have argued that Wozniak didn’t say anything incriminating in the interview.
“To the contrary, Wozniak denies that he committed the murders, describes his surprise when he was arrested during his bachelor party, explains how he attempted suicide after his arrest, and professes his love for the Bible,” their court papers state.
The attorneys went on to say Wozniak described himself as a “good guy … I’m easygoing. I enjoy long walks on the beach. I’m an Aries.”
Murphy also reiterated that he and his team had no idea Wozniak did the interview until someone from the family of one of the victims saw an ad for it and called Murphy’s office. Murphy said he alerted Sanders “as a professional courtesy.”
The most recent legal skirmish stems from Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Kevin Brazile’s rejection of a motion to disqualify Conley from presiding over Wozniak’s penalty trial.
Wozniak’s attorneys argued that it was well established before the case even found its way to Conley’s courtroom that they wanted to call the judge as a witness to testify about what they say is a three-decades-long conspiracy to use jailhouse snitches to violate the rights of defendants while in custody. Conley worked as a prosecutor in the 1980s.
The defense contends Conley’s status as a potential witness should disqualify him from presiding over the defendant’s trial.
The attorneys also argued that Conley showed bias in the case with legal filings defending his ability to remain impartial. For instance, they argue he “incorrectly” assumed Wozniak would make the case for dismissal of the death penalty and recusal of Conley based on a Massiah motion violation, which refers to a landmark case that prohibits questioning of a suspect after he has acquired legal representation.
The attorneys also fault Brazile for failing “to address the issue of how Judge Conley could serve simultaneously and fairly as the judge and a witness during an evidentiary hearing on whether the death penalty should be dismissed.”
Wozniak’s attorneys argue the same jailhouse snitch — Fernando Perez — questioned Wozniak and Scott Evans Dekraai, the worst mass killer in Orange County history. Both are represented by Sanders, who has fought to have the District Attorney’s Office kicked off both cases.
Prosecutors argue in their reply that any evidence from Perez, aka Inmate F, wouldn’t be used in Wozniak’s trial. Also, Perez was not officially a government informant at the time he chatted with Wozniak.
“Inmate F was facing a lengthy potential prison sentence and decided to share Mr. Wozniak’s admissions with law enforcement,” Wyatt’s defenders write in their brief. “Inmate F had no contact with anyone from Wozniak’s prosecution team prior to his conversation with the defendant.”
Murphy said he quickly alerted Sanders about Inmate F and said he would not call him as a witness. That ended Costa Mesa’s work with Inmate F.
Wozniak is accused of luring Samuel Herr to the Los Alamitos Joint Forces Military base in May 2010 to shoot him and then using the victim’s cell phone to trick his friend, Juri Kibuishi, into going to Herr’s Costa Mesa apartment, where the defendant allegedly gunned her down and then made it look like Herr killed her during a sexual assault. Wozniak then allegedly returned to the base to dismember Herr.
— City News Service