Voice of OC (https://voiceofoc.org/tag/jailhouse-snitch-scandal/)
The move came after an appeals court found prosecutors had systemically violated defendants’ rights with an illegal informant program, according to the DA’s office.
It’s the first set of probes the Office of Independent Review, which has sat vacant since 2018, has announced in years. An Aug. 27 report announced three investigations.
The court’s focus will be whether the informant program is ongoing and whether it is illegal, the appeals justices wrote.
Several family members of victims of Orange County’s deadliest mass murder are demanding that District Attorney Todd Spitzer resign.
After Todd Spitzer took office as district attorney, he took a starkly different approach towards the same prosecutors he criticized as a candidate.
A new report confirms and expands on an appeals court’s 2016 findings of misconduct.
Sheriff officials conduct the official background investigations as part of the selection process for grand jurors who later investigate the department. The reviews include sheriff officials reporting to the court whether each applicant appears “competent to serve as a Grand Juror.”
Former District Attorney Tony Rackauckas quietly decided last year to not have prosecutors tell defense attorneys about 10 sheriff deputies suspected of lying about or concealing records about jail informants.
A lack of oversight allowed the illegal recording of more than 30,000 phone calls between inmates and their attorneys inside county jails, according to the Orange County Grand Jury.
District Attorney Todd Spitzer announced April 24 that he’s launching an internal investigation into the jailhouse snitch scandal while seeking clarification from the state Attorney General if the state probe is finished or not.