Judge rips into OC prosecutors and calls their misconduct 'reprehensible'

A court ruling Tuesday accuses Orange County prosecutors of “reprehensible” conduct in a murder case stemming from the so-called jailhouse snitch scandal. The San Diego judge who made the ruling also said a former top O.C. prosecutor, who is now a judge, was “not truthful” during court proceedings.

The backstory

A decade ago, in the wake of the county’s biggest mass murder, the Orange County public defender’s office discovered that local law enforcement had been illegally using informants — sometimes called snitches — to get information and confessions from defendants in jail. The discovery has unraveled close to 60 criminal convictions to date and tainted the reputations of the county district attorney and Sheriff’s Department.

What is this case about?

The public defender’s office was asking a judge to drop charges against Paul Smith, who was accused of fatally stabbing his childhood friend Robert Haugen in 1988 and then setting the body on fire in the victim’s Sunset Beach apartment. The defense argued that the district attorney's office and Sheriff’s Department hid dozens of pieces of evidence that could have been useful in defending against the murder charges, so the issue was being heard by a San Diego judge.

What did the judge rule?

The judge, Daniel Goldstein, declined to drop charges against Smith — citing, at least in part, the current prosecution team being "far more concerned with a search for the truth" than the team that initially prosecuted Smith. But he did preclude prosecutors from seeking life in prison without parole.

The judge also lashed into the former lead prosecutor at the time, Ebrahim Baytieh, who is now an Orange County Superior Court judge. Goldstein stopped just short of calling Baytieh a liar, saying he “was not truthful during these proceedings” and “made a falsified statement to the court.”

Baytieh has not responded to repeated requests for comment in the case.

What's the big picture?

O.C. law enforcement has failed, again and again, to uphold a defendant’s right to a fair trial, according to this and previous rulings. The initial snitch scandal led to a federal civil rights investigation and promises of reform by county law enforcement — even as defense attorneys say past injustices haven’t been remedied.

What does the current D.A. say?

In a statement to LAist, District Attorney Todd Spitzer said he was proud of the reforms his office had implemented to correct past problems with jailhouse informants under the previous District Attorney. Spitzer, who fired Baytieh for his role in the snitch scandal, also said Baytieh’s actions in the case should be reported to the State Bar and the Judicial Council, which oversees the state’s judges.

"I fired Baytieh after he lied to the Department of Justice during their investigation into the prior administration’s use of jailhouse informants in violation of defendants’ constitutional rights and it was made abundantly clear that he was untrustworthy as a prosecutor."

What’s next?

Smith, the defendant in the 1988 murder case, will be retried. His lawyer, assistant public defender Scott Sanders, said he did not believe his client could get a fair trial. "What we have here and what's acknowledged by the court is behavior so incredibly bad by people with the ability to change outcomes  that no, no, they will not get a fair trial."

Tuesday’s ruling could lead more cases to be reopened and reexamined for prosecutorial misconduct. And convictions could potentially be lessened or overturned.

Go deeper

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Jailhouse informants: Has Orange County reformed its ways?

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