Voice of OC (https://voiceofoc.org/tag/orange-county-public-defenders-office/)
Revelations of OC Sheriff’s evidence handling problems have now reached California’s biggest serial killer case in years.
Orange County’s mass of peaceful demonstrations against police brutality — roughly 50 and counting — on Monday stretched into a second week.
County costs are growing faster than revenues, most prominently with the Sheriff’s Department, officials said.
The new building will roughly double the amount of floor space for the county supervisors’ offices, to 32,000 square feet.
Several programs created throughout Southern California in the wake of Proposition 47 in 2014, which called for releasing certain non-violent and drug offenders from state prisons, are beginning to bear fruit.
While officials up and down the state are positioning themselves to take advantage of grant money aimed at helping newly released nonviolent drug offenders stay clean and out of jail, Orange County officials have been missing in action.
For decades, Dr. Joseph Wu has used UCI’s PET brain imaging technology as the basis of his forensic diagnoses in murder cases. Wu’s testimony has a dubious reputation among experts in the field, with one calling it “hokum.”
In a court document, the public defender’s office alleges that the investigator was involved in “criminal activity” with the former owner of an athletic supply company. The DA’s office calls the allegations “unfounded.”