Voice of OC (https://voiceofoc.org/tag/thomas-goethals/)
She testified she believes there was no widespread misuse of jailhouse informants by her department, but sheriff’s deputies moved confidential informants in the jails to elicit incriminating statements from defendants over the course of years.
Orange County Sheriff’s Department Deputy Jonathan Larson testified at a court hearing Thursday that he recalled continuous use of the Special Handling log, daily notes kept by jail deputies, during his year in the Special Handling unit, the same year there is an unexplained six-month gap in the log.
“This has been an embarrassment for us and um, nobody wants this to happen again,” testified Commander William Baker. “It’s not going to happen again.”
The Fourth District Court of Appeal Friday unanimously upheld a ruling that Orange County District Attorney prosecutors improperly withheld information from defense attorneys and misused a jailhouse informant.
Orange County’s worst mass murderer Scott Evans Dekraai, who shot and killed eight people at a Seal Beach beauty salon in 2011, publicly apologized Thursday to the sister of one of his victims.
The Sheriff’s Department withheld documents from court disclosure, believing a section of the California penal code didn’t require the department to turn them over, retired Sheriff’s Lt. Catherine Irons testified Wednesday.
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 John 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.”
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.