As prosecutors produced more information in court from an internal log that included Orange County sheriff’s deputies’ comments on the use of jailhouse informants, Sheriff Sandra Hutchens assured the public that she is doing everything she can to clean up the legal mess that has been dubbed the “snitch scandal.”
The data from the internal, administrative log used by deputies in the Special Handling Unit was turned over to Orange County Superior Court Judge Thomas Goethals, who is presiding over the case against Scott Dekraai, who has pleaded guilty to the worst mass killing in the county’s history and is awaiting the penalty phase of his trial in which he faces a possible death sentence.
Goethals has removed the Orange County District Attorney’s Office from the Dekraai case, citing outrageous governmental misconduct in the handling of evidence that was to be turned over to the defendant’s attorneys, but that ruling is under appeal.
Prosecutors want Goethals to seal the documents because they may contain sensitive information that they believe should not be public, and they also want a private hearing with the judge to discuss the terms of turning over the information to Dekraai’s attorney, Assistant Public Defender Scott Sanders, who has alleged misconduct in that case and in the case against his other client, convicted double killer Daniel Patrick Wozniak, who a jury has recommended be put to death but is awaiting formal sentencing.
Attorneys will be back in court Friday to discuss Sanders’ latest legal salvos in the Wozniak case in which he alleges information about the use of an informant was not turned over to him before trial.
Prosecutors contend the information about informant Fernando Perez is irrelevant because even though he spoke with Wozniak while the two were in custody, which could potentially be a violation of the defendant’s constitutional rights if Perez questioned him on behalf of the government in an official capacity, they never used Perez as a witness in Wozniak’s trial.
Because Wozniak confessed to the killings, anything Perez had to offer was deemed redundant, prosecutors say.
Prosecutors say they repeatedly requested information about the use of informants after Sanders raised issues about whether they were used to pump other inmates for information in ways that would violate their constitutional rights. They say the internal log only came to light recently in the case against convicted double killer Henry Rodriguez, who recently persuaded Goethals to get another trial based on claims that evidence was not given to him regarding an informant.
Hutchens said her department also beat the bushes for any information about the jailhouse snitches to turn over to defense attorneys, and they received “personal” notes from a deputy on the Rodriguez case in February.
“These notes were not part of our general documentation practice and protocol for record keeping in the jail,” Hutchens said in a statement. “The discovery of these notes were shared with the court and the Department of Justice.”
The California Attorney General’s Office has been looped in on the evidence because that office is investigating the informant-handling allegations at the request of Rackauckas. The Attorney General’s Office is also assigned to the Dekraai case, pending the outcome of Rackauckas’ appeal.
“Immediately, an internal memo was sent out department-wide to conduct an inventory of all records past and present associated with jail classification and special handling,” Hutchens said.
“Following the memo, we began receiving responses from personnel regarding various work product. An additional email was sent out to past and present classification/special handling deputies reiterating our priority in locating any records or documents.”
That generated more data, including the “special handling log,” which has become a focus of Sanders in the Wozniak case.
“This log was an informal work product generated by the deputies to assist with their daily communication within the unit,” Hutchens said. “We learned of the existence of a special handling log of 1,157 pages long with entries dated from September 2008 to January 2013.”
That information was turned over to prosecutors, who revealed it after Wozniak’s conviction and death-sentence recommendation.
Hutchens said she has assembled a team “specifically dedicated to reviewing the contents of the log and the existence of any additional files or records. This is a thorough and ongoing effort.”
The sheriff said she has “directed that jail staff be retrained on proper record-keeping procedures.”
An internal sheriff’s investigation of her department cannot be completed until the Attorney General finishes its review, Hutchens said.
Since last year, Rackauckas has had one of his top assistants, Ebrahim Baytieh, who was named the state’s prosecutor of the year in 2012, training deputies on the laws regarding the handling of informants.
“As your sheriff, I take this issue seriously,” Hutchens said. “It is important for the public to know that we have been responsive to all subpoenas, discovery requests and legal mandates based on our knowledge at the time.
“We will continue to be cooperative with the Attorney General’s Office. Part of my responsibility as sheriff is to ensure that constitutional rights are protected, while at the same time providing for the safety and security of the community, including those incarcerated inside the jail.
“The members of the Sheriff’s Department and my leadership team will continue to ensure we are providing all information in terms of discovery and fully cooperating in the criminal justice process.”
Several convicted killers and others accused of violent crimes, such as attempted murder, have been given plea deals that allowed them to walk free in part due to the allegations related to the use of informants.
Tom Dominguez, president of the union that represents deputy sheriffs, chalked up the scandal to poorly trained staff and, in essence, denied the conspiracy to take legal shortcuts to win cases that Sanders has alleged.
“As we have repeatedly stated, the deputies in this case were not trained investigators, let alone homicide investigators,” Dominguez said.
“They were not thoroughly instructed in discovery requirement or investigative and informant protocols. The involved deputies relied on the legal expertise of prosecutors and their limited training.”
The deputies were likely confused by their parallel duty to protect the identities of the informants, who would undoubtedly be vulnerable to retaliation in jail as snitches, Dominguez said.
“State law requires official confidential records, specifically jail records, not be made public in order to protect both inmates and the public,” Dominguez said.
“The deputies were not trained to balance these conflicting obligations. The sheriff has mandated lapses in training be corrected. We believe a thorough review of the record and of the legal obligations will demonstrate the deputies testified in line with their training.”
When Goethals granted Dekraai’s motion to remove the District Attorney’s Office from his case he cited testimony from sheriff’s deputies that he characterized as dishonest.
“As the chief law enforcement officer in this county, the district attorney is responsible for the actions of his agents,” Goethals wrote in his ruling in March 2015.
“In this case the evidence demonstrates that some of those agents have habitually ignored the law over and extended period of time to the detriment of this defendant … The district attorney has a conflict of interest in this case, which has actually deprived this defendant of due process in the past.”
Dominguez disagreed.
“This situation has revealed broad issues involving document management, storage and coordination with prosecutors and the Sheriff’s Department, not individual deputies, responsible for ensuring proper discovery,” he said. “There is no indication that any materials were purposely left out of the record-keeping system.”
–City News Service