This is one of the worst stories about official corruption we have seen in recent times in California. Back in 2014, Assistant Public Defender Scott Sanders was the keynote speaker at the Vanguard’s annual fundraiser and spoke about the jailhouse informant scandal of Orange County.
The case kept going – on and on. The basics of it were that the public defender, Mr. Sanders, uncovered evidence that the Orange County DA’s office and Sheriff’s Department were systematically planting informants with prisoners in violation of their right to counsel, and then deliberately not telling the defense.
There are all sorts of illegalities here that we can probably get into.
Incredibly the consequences here are both immense and underwhelming. The DA last year was defeated for reelection. The judge effectively took the case of Scott Dekraii away from the Orange County DA’s office, the AG’s office under both Kamala Harris and Xavier Bacerra fought the judge, attempting first to get him to reinstate the DA’s office and then attempting to fight for the death penalty – which the judge took off the table.
And at the end of the day, while the voters punished the DA, the AG’s office closed their four-year investigation without any penalties.
