OUTLIER COUNTIES: Orange County, California Plagued by Misconduct Scandals

Orange County, California imposed nine death sen­tences between 2010 and 2015, more than 99.8% of American coun­ties, and rank­ing it among the 6 most pro­lif­ic death-sen­tenc­ing coun­ties in the coun­try dur­ing that period. 

Over the last four years, pat­terns of mis­con­duct have been revealed in the Orange County District Attorney’s Office, sher­if­f’s office, and crime lab. In 2015, Judge Thomas Goethals dis­qual­i­fied District Attorney Tony Rackauckas (pic­tured) and the entire pros­e­cu­tor’s office from par­tic­i­pat­ing in the cap­i­tal tri­al of Scott Dekraai because of sys­temic police and pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al mis­con­duct involv­ing the delib­er­ate and undis­closed use of prison infor­mants to uncon­sti­tu­tion­al­ly elic­it incrim­i­nat­ing state­ments from defen­dants. A California appeals court, cit­ing “[t]he mag­ni­tude of the sys­temic prob­lems” in Orange County and the ​“cozy rela­tion­ship” between local pros­e­cu­tors and the sher­if­f’s office, upheld the tri­al court’s order. 

The sis­ter of the vic­tim in Dekraai’s case asked the office to stop seek­ing the death penal­ty because the mis­han­dling of the case had led to five years of delays. She called the death penal­ty a ​“false promise” for vic­tims’ fam­i­lies, yet the office con­tin­ued to pur­sue a death sentence. 

Judge Goethals’ rul­ing prompt­ed the pas­sage of a California law giv­ing judges greater author­i­ty to remove pros­e­cu­tors from cas­es in which they have com­mit­ted mis­con­duct, and to report mis­con­duct to the state bar. It also led to a spe­cial com­mit­tee report on the Orange County District Attorney’s Office, which found a ​“fail­ure of lead­er­ship” at the root of the mis­con­duct, along with a ​“win-at-all-costs mentality.”

In mid-December, the U.S. Department of Justice announced it was open­ing an inves­ti­ga­tion into the coun­ty’s use of jail­house infor­mants. Meanwhile, a motion by the Orange County Public Defender’s Office filed in September accused the coun­ty crime lab of doc­tor­ing tes­ti­mo­ny to ben­e­fit the pros­e­cu­tion, after a senior foren­sic ana­lyst offered con­tra­dic­to­ry tes­ti­mo­ny in two sep­a­rate mur­der tri­als, each sup­port­ing the prosecution’s case. 

Recent death sen­tences in Orange County show pat­terns of bias and dis­pro­por­tion­al­i­ty. 89% of those sen­tenced to death from 2010 – 2015 were peo­ple of col­or, and 44% were Black, though Blacks make up just 2% of Orange County’s pop­u­la­tion. Half of the 24 cas­es decid­ed on direct appeal from 2006 – 2015 involved defen­dants with seri­ous men­tal ill­ness, brain dam­age, intel­lec­tu­al impair­ment, or who were under age 25 at the time of their crime.