Snitch scandal agreement reached between Orange County Sheriff’s Department, D.A. and feds

Orange County prosecutors and the Orange County Sheriff’s Department have reached a settlement with federal officials over their illegal use of informants in county jails, which was blamed for a years-long scandal that upended the justice system in the county.

On Friday, the U.S. Department of Justice announced it reached an agreement with the Sheriff’s Department that requires training, policy changes, documentation and audits to continue oversight over the use of snitches in jails. Federal prosecutors will also have access to the data to confirm whether the department has performed the required reforms.

The agreement with the Sheriff’s Department would seemingly bring an end to a years-long scandal that has plagued the county’s justice system, and tainted some of the most high-profile prosecutions.

Details of the illegal use of informants first came to light during the trial of Scott Dekraai, who killed his ex-wife and seven others during a mass shooting in Seal Beach in 2011. Dekraai had admitted to being the gunman, but officials still placed an informant in a neighboring cell.

Dekraai’s attorney at the time, Orange County Assistant Public Defender Scott Sanders, accused the Sheriff’s Department of placing informants near defendants to solicit confessions even after the defendants were represented by attorneys. Prosecutors were also accused of hiding evidence of the use of informants during trial, keeping the practice secret, and keeping exculpatory information from reaching defense attorneys.

Orange County’s public defender’s office estimated more than 50 felony trials, most of them homicide cases, were tainted and affected by the snitch scandal.

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The U.S. Department of Justice launched an investigation into the use of jail informants in 2016, and said it’s investigation found that informants were used as “agents of law enforcement to elicit incriminating statements.”

For years, deputies maintained and concealed records that tracked and managed the jailhouse informants, and prosecutors “failed to seek out and disclose exculpatory information regarding custodial informants to defense counsel,” according to a statement from the Department of Justice when they announced their findings.

In a statement, Sanders said he hoped the agreement will mean better practices in the future, but said numerous criminal defendants in Orange County are still unclear about how the use of informants might have affected their trials.

“This is the largest and longest-running informant scandal in U.S. history — and yet so many defendants remain in the dark about egregious misconduct that unfairly tilted the scales of justice,” he said.

When the scandal came to light, then-Orange County Sheriff Sandra Hutchens and then-Orange County Dist. Atty. Tony Rackauckas denied the allegations. When Rackauckas ran for reelection, the scandal was a main point of contention. He lost to now-Dist. Atty. Todd Spitzer, who was sworn in in 2019.

“I made it unequivocally clear when I ran for Orange County District Attorney in 2019 that I would not tolerate the ‘win at all costs’ mentality of the prior administration,” Spitzer said in a statement. “Under my direction, OCDA has made a broad series of additional proactive reformative measures to improve OCDA operations, including changes to its management structure, policies, training, supervision, and staffing.”

In a statement, the Sheriff’s Department said it was pleased the investigation was now closed.

“Since 2016, we have worked diligently to implement comprehensive reforms regarding custodial informants,” Sheriff Don Barnes said in a statement. “This Agreement provides a framework for the DOJ to validate those efforts and establish our policies and practices to be among the best in the nation.”

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Under the agreement, the Sheriff’s Department will need to publish information about its reforms involving the use of informants and solicit feedback.

“The robust and transparent validation measures in today’s agreement will strengthen the public’s trust in the Sheriff’s Department and uphold the constitutional rights of criminal defendants in custody,” said Assistant Atty. Gen. Kristen Clarke of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. “We applaud the sheriff for his proactive efforts instituting key improvements to prevent the misuse of custodial informants at the Orange County jails.”

The agreement with the Orange County Sheriff’s Department came just days after the Department of Justice announced it had also reached an agreement with the Orange County district attorney’s office.

That agreement also requires prosecutors to implement new policies to prevent the misuse of informants, maintain records and audits, and to disclose exculpatory evidence to criminal defendants involving snitches.

Among the new policies implemented, jail informants must now be approved by the sheriff, and informants used in prosecutions have to be vetted by an internal review committee in the district attorney’s office.

“I hope these procedures will provide the type of oversight and accountability necessary to prevent future issues,” said Martin F. Schwarz, Orange County Public Defender.

Schwarz said the agreement requires a “historical case review” of affected cases, and noted that the use of informants in investigations has repeatedly proved problematic.

“Custodial informants are inherently unreliable, their testimony is one of the leading causes of wrongful convictions, and their use as witnesses in criminal cases should be evaluated at the highest levels,” he said.