A new report by a spe­cial com­mit­tee cre­at­ed by Orange County, California District Attorney Tony Rackauckas (pic­tured) cites a ​“fail­ure of lead­er­ship” as the root cause of a mul­ti-decade his­to­ry of pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al mis­con­duct involv­ing jail­house infor­mants. Documents obtained by defense lawyers and The Orange County Register had revealed what the paper called ​“a secret and well-orga­nized net­work of snitch­es” that had been hid­den from defense coun­sel and the courts. In May 2015, California Superior Court Judge Thomas Goethals dis­qual­i­fied the entire Orange County District Attorney’s office from par­tic­i­pat­ing in the cap­i­tal tri­al of Scott Dekraai after Dekraai’s attor­neys alleged that pros­e­cu­tors had delib­er­ate­ly vio­lat­ed his con­sti­tu­tion­al rights by arrang­ing to place him in a cell near an infor­mant who had been instruct­ed to elic­it incrim­i­nat­ing state­ments. The court found that the coun­ty’s pros­e­cu­tors had repeat­ed­ly vio­lat­ed court orders to dis­close infor­ma­tion about infor­mants, hid­ing the exis­tence of an intri­cate com­put­er­ized data base track­ing how they were used. The pros­e­cu­tor’s office also faces crit­i­cism for alleged­ly fail­ing to dis­close ben­e­fits it pro­vid­ed to an infor­mant — who now says she pro­vid­ed false tes­ti­mo­ny — in the 1997 cap­i­tal tri­al of John Abel. After the infor­mant scan­dal became pub­lic, Rackauckas estab­lished a spe­cial com­mit­tee of legal experts to inves­ti­gate the office’s prac­tices and sug­gest reforms. The com­mit­tee’s report, released on December 30, crit­i­cized the office for a ​“win-at-all-costs men­tal­i­ty,” and con­cludes, ​“There is an imme­di­ate need for stronger lead­er­ship, train­ing, super­vi­sion, men­tor­ing, and over­sight to change the cul­ture.” In 2012, Orange County had the 6th largest coun­ty death row in the US and was part of the 2% of US coun­ties respon­si­ble for more than half of the coun­try’s death row. Since then, it has pro­duced 5 more death sen­tences, more than all California coun­ties except Riverside and Los Angeles.

Among the 10 rec­om­men­da­tions made in the report are revis­ing poli­cies regard­ing use of jail­house infor­mants, pro­vid­ing addi­tion­al train­ing on the use of infor­mants and dis­cov­ery require­ments, and estab­lish­ing a Conviction Integrity Unit and Chief Ethics Officer with­in the pros­e­cu­tor’s office. During a news con­fer­ence fol­low­ing the release of the report, Rackauckas said he did not believe any of the pros­e­cu­tors who failed to dis­close infor­ma­tion to defen­dants about the mis­use of infor­mants had act­ed inten­tion­al­ly and that no one in his office had been dis­ci­plined as a result of the con­tro­ver­sy. ​“You don’t pun­ish some­one for mak­ing a mis­take,” he said.

(M. Hamilton and J. Queally, “ ​‘Failure of lead­er­ship’ at the Orange County D.A.‘s office led to infor­mant issues, report says,” Los Angeles Times, January 4, 2016; D. Ferrell and T. Saavedra, ​“Accountability ques­tions dog D.A. Tony Rackauckas and O.C.‘s jus­tice sys­tem,” Orange County Register, December 30, 2015, updat­ed January 5, 2016; J. Tillman, ​“Inside the snitch tank, part 3: The care and feed­ing of a jail­house infor­mant,” Orange County Register, November 25, 2015, updat­ed January 5, 2016.) Read the full report. See Arbitrariness and Prosecutorial Misconduct.

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