Voice of OC (https://voiceofoc.org/tag/orange-county-sheriffs-department/)
The move to put the crime lab scientists under a law enforcement agency directly contradicts the national best practices Sheriff Don Barnes and DA Todd Spitzer cited to justify the change.
The Pen-Link system allows law enforcement to monitor, store, and analyze phone conversations and internet communications for investigations, according to the Sheriff’s Department.
At least three more OC sheriff officials knew in 2016 and 2017 of illegally recorded telephone calls between jail inmates and their attorneys, in addition to a sheriff investigator’s knowledge in 2015 of such recordings, according to evidence presented Wednesday in Superior Court.
The state-mandated forum brought out more than two dozen public speakers who supported and opposed the Sheriff’s Department’s involvement with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
The testimony raised questions about why, when sheriff and DA officials learned of attorney-client recordings in 2015, they apparently did not examine the issue further and potentially stop the systemic recording of hundreds of protected calls.
The suicide death of an inmate who was awaiting trial is raising questions about mental health care and safety checks on inmates in Orange County jail facilities. A federal judge called some of the mental health policies “problematic.”
Assistant Public Defender Scott Sanders says Sheriff’s Department personnel and Global Tel Link, the county’s jail phone contractor, knew about improper recordings of attorney-client jail calls but conspired to cover it up. He also points to discrepancies in data turned over by Global Tel Link that suggest far more than 1,079 attorney-client phone calls were improperly recorded.
The vendor, Global Tel-Link, potentially jeopardized criminal cases by improperly recording phone calls between attorneys and their clients.
A hunger strike by Orange County jail inmates ended as of 10 p.m. Friday according to Sheriff’s spokesman Ray Grangoff.
Roughly 150 to 200 Orange County jail inmates are on a hunger strike to protest jailhouse conditions, according to two different estimates — one from the OC Sheriff’s Department and another from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).