The failed cap­i­tal pros­e­cu­tion of Scott Dekraai for the worst mass mur­der in Orange County, California his­to­ry has cost tax­pay­ers more than $2.5 mil­lion — more than dou­ble the aver­age cost of a California death-penal­ty case — and the pric­etag for con­tin­u­ing inves­ti­ga­tions into offi­cial mis­con­duct by the coun­ty dis­trict attor­ney’s and sher­if­f’s offices con­tin­ues to rise. Unlike most cap­i­tal cas­es, the costs were not pri­mar­i­ly for the tri­al itself, but the prod­uct of a mul­ti-year inves­ti­ga­tion and court hear­ings into decades-long abus­es by Orange County law enforce­ment involv­ing the delib­er­ate mis­use of jail­house infor­mants to obtain incrim­i­nat­ing state­ments from tar­get­ed pris­on­ers, includ­ing Dekraai. ​“The price of mis­con­duct is steep,” said Seattle University crim­i­nal jus­tice pro­fes­sor Peter Collins, an expert on death penal­ty costs. Dekraai plead­ed guilty to eight counts of mur­der in May 2014, and in nor­mal cir­cum­stances, the penal­ty phase of the case would have been com­plet­ed lat­er that year. However, for the past three years, the case has been dom­i­nat­ed by the infor­mant scan­dal. In May 2015, Judge Thomas Goethals dis­qual­i­fied the entire Orange County District Attorney’s Office from involve­ment in the case after find­ing that pros­e­cu­tors had engaged in wide­spread mis­con­duct, failed to dis­close the improp­er prac­tices, and repeat­ed­ly lied to the court about it. Additional fail­ures by the coun­ty sher­if­f’s office to com­ply with court orders to pro­duce records relat­ed to the scan­dal extend­ed the length of the court’s inves­ti­ga­tion, and ulti­mate­ly led to the court bar­ring the state from pur­su­ing the death penal­ty. According to an analy­sis by the Southern California News Group, tax­pay­ers had already spent more than $2.5 mil­lion on the case, not includ­ing costs incurred by the Orange County District Attorney’s office — which said it did not track what it spent on the case — or by the state attor­ney gen­er­al’s office after it took over the case. Known costs include approx­i­mate­ly $1 mil­lion for defense costs over the near­ly six years the case has been pend­ing; an esti­mat­ed $743,000 in costs for court time and per­son­nel; more than $370,000 in costs for a grand jury inves­ti­ga­tion; $290,000 in pre­tri­al incar­cer­a­tion costs; and more than $100,000 for the coun­ty to pro­vide legal rep­re­sen­ta­tion to the sher­if­f’s depart­ment dur­ing the inves­ti­ga­tion. In addi­tion to pros­e­cu­tor salaries and oth­er pros­e­cu­tion costs, the $2.5 mil­lion esti­mate does not include the costs of the Orange County District Attorney’s appeal of the order remov­ing it from the case; any state mon­ey spent on the ongo­ing inves­ti­ga­tion into the coun­ty’s infor­mant abus­es; nor the costs of a U.S. Department of Justice civ­il rights inves­ti­ga­tion into the infor­mant scan­dal. Dekraai is sched­uled to be sen­tenced on September 22 to eight terms of life without parole. 

(T. Saavedra, ​“Taxpayer cost for mass mur­der­er Scott Dekraai’s case tops $2.5 mil­lion,” The Orange County Register. September 17, 2017.) See Costs and Prosecutorial Misconduct.

Citation Guide