Jail informant scandal: O.C. sheriff testifies that any misconduct was limited to 'a few' deputies
Orange County Sheriff Sandra Hutchens testified Wednesday that her deputies may have flouted rules regarding jailhouse informants, but that such conduct was committed only “by a few.â€
“It is not something widespread,†Hutchens said under questioning from Assistant Public Defender Scott Sanders, who alleges that the Sheriff's Department has engaged in an elaborate, decades-long jailhouse snitch operation that it took great pains to conceal from defense attorneys.
Asked to elaborate, Hutchens pointed to Seth Tunstall, William Grover and Ben Garcia, who worked as jailers in the so-called special handling unit that dealt with informers. “They are still under criminal investigation†by the California attorney general's office, Hutchens said.
Hutchens added: “There may have been a few deputies who took their duties to different levels than were authorized.â€
For three years, Sanders has pursued a goal that seemed implausible: the chance to question Hutchens under oath about the use of snitches in her jails.
Her testimony comes in the fifth week of the third round of hearings meant to probe informant-related evidence in the case of Orange County’s worst mass shooting.
Hutchens is testifying before Orange County Superior Court Judge Thomas Goethals. The judge has expressed repeated frustration with the Sheriff’s Department’s failure to turn over evidence.
The judge has criticized Hutchens for taking “inconsistent positions†on the withholding of evidence. He has at times has threatened to hold her in contempt.
The case stems from the prosecution of Scott Dekraai, a former tugboat captain who pleaded guilty to the murders of eight people at a Seal Beach salon in 2011. To bolster its chances of sending Dekraai to death row, the prosecution originally sought to use evidence against him obtained by a veteran jailhouse informant.
The penalty phase of Dekraai’s trial â€" in which he will get the death penalty or life in prison â€" has been delayed indefinitely as the hearings drag on.
Sanders, who represents Dekraai, argues the Sheriff’s Department has proved itself untrustworthy and that the death penalty should be thrown out.
The Sheriff’s Department has delivered bewildering and contradictory responses to questions about operations in which jailhouse snitches elicited incriminating statements from targeted inmates.
The department denies the existence of any such operation, a claim undermined by memos and internal documents introduced in court.
The California attorney general’s office, which is prosecuting the Dekraai case after Goethals tossed the entire Orange County district attorney’s office off the case, continues to pursue the death penalty.
So far, despite weeks of testimony in the current hearing, no one seems able to answer one of Sanders’ key questions â€" what accounts for a gap between April and October 2011 in the special handling log?
Called to testify, some sheriff’s jailers have invoked their 5th Amendment right against self-incrimination.
Some former supervisors in the jail’s special handling unit have blamed lower-level jailers for any misuse of snitches â€" a narrative echoed in a heavily criticized recent report from the Orange County grand jury, which blames “rogue deputies.â€
In court on Wednesday, Sanders questioned Hutchens about public statements she has made that her deputies “don't work informants in the jail,†and confronted her with internal Sheriff's Department memos â€" including a memo that hung on a jailhouse office wall â€" that showed jailers cultivated snitches as part of their duties.
Hutchens replied that what she meant is that jailers dealt with informants but did not initiate snitch-involv ed investigations into targeted inmates in the widespread way Sanders has alleged.
Instead, she said, jailers responded to requests from outside law enforcement agencies who wished to use informants.
Sanders confronted her with an email from a former special handling deputy â€" written in June 2014, as the current litigation was underway â€" which showed the department had decided to relabel informants as "sources of information."
Hutchens said she had never seen the email before but that she was not troubled by it.
“It appears that [the deputy] is trying to get best practices out there,†Hutchens said.
She said the department had ramped up its training and taken pains to classify informants carefully so that deputies better know what information requires disclosure to defense attorneys.
“We could have done a better job of responding to discovery requests,†Hutchens said.
Sanders contends the relabeling was part of a conc erted effort to deceive and deter defendants who are seeking jailhouse records.
Hutchens testified that she believed much of the confusion surrounding her agency's work with informants involved “terminology.â€
Hutchens said that information from so-called TRED records, which dealt with the classification of inmates, including informants, had been turned over to defense attorneys in numerous cases before the Dekraai case.
She said she had not known the records were called “TREDs†when she took over as sheriff in 2008, nor did she know where the term originated. But she disputed Sanders' characterization of the records as “some secret database.â€
Sanders asked for the cases in which such information had been turned over.
“I can't go through and enumerate every case,†Hutchens said.
Hutchens said she agreed with a recent Orange County Grand Jury report that characterized the misuse of informants as the work of rogue deputies.
Sand ers presented a memo in which a jailer spoke openly of his role in cultivating informants, suggesting supervisors clearly knew of the work.
“That doesn't sound too rogue, right?†Sanders said. “Sounds like the people above him know what he's doing.â€
Hutchens said that what jail supervisors may have known is part of the criminal and internal investigations now underway.
Last week, Hutchens, who has been sheriff since 2008, announced she will not run for reelection next year. Both the Department of Justice and the California attorney general’s office are probing her department’s handling of informants.
0 Response to "Jail informant scandal: O.C. sheriff testifies that any misconduct was limited to 'a few' deputies"
Posting Komentar