Voice of OC (https://voiceofoc.org/tag/scott-sanders/)
Confessed mass murderer Scott Evans Dekraai will receive life in prison after Superior Court Judge Thomas Goethals Friday blocked him from receiving the death penalty.
It’s one of several questions Superior Court Judge Thomas Goethals is considering before ruling Aug. 18 on whether or not confessed mass murderer Scott Evans Dekraai faces the death penalty
Superior Court Judge Thomas Goethals will announce Friday if mass murderer Scott Evans Dekraai faces the death penalty in a case that upended at least six other criminal convictions, damaged the reputations of both the Orange County Sheriff’s Department and District Attorney’s Office and unveiled the “jailhouse snitch scandal.”
Orange County’s civil grand jury said ongoing court hearing about possible misuse of jailhouse informants have turned into a “witch-hunt,” and should stop after the grand jury determined there is no “systemic, widespread informant program.”
Judge Thomas Goethals wants Sheriff Sandra Hutchens to explain in court her claim that there is no jailhouse informants program in Orange County jails.
Commander Jon Briggs testified Tuesday the jail house informant scandal developed because high management turnover left junior deputies with too much control, meaning “inmates were running the asylum on occasion.”
The contents of the Special Handling Log — notes kept by deputies on informants and other inmates — are at the center of a hearing which explores whether Sheriff’s Department officials withheld or shredded key documents.
Two more Sheriff’s Department personnel invoked their Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination, raising the total number of Sheriff’s officers who have taken the fifth to four.
Two Orange County Sheriff’s deputies, Benjamin Garcia and William Grover, invoked their Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination at a court hearing Thursday rather than answer questions about their dealings with jailhouse informant records.
The Scott Evans Dekraai mass murder trial has evolved into a case study of the Sheriff’s Department and Orange County District Attorney’s use of jailhouse informants.