Supreme Court Rules Against Double Murder Defendant

The California Supreme Court today rejected a double- murder defendant’s attempt to get an Orange County Superior Court judge removed from his death penalty case.

The state’s high court, without comment, rejected the petition seeking to keep John Conley from presiding over the case of Daniel Patrick Wozniak. Wozniak is accused of killing two people, dismembering one in a Los Alamitos theater and dumping his body parts in El Dorado Park.

Public Defender Scott Sanders, who represents Wozniak, alleges that his client’s rights were violated by a jailhouse informant in much the same way as convicted mass killer Scott Dekraai, who Sanders also represents.

Sanders convinced another judge to have the Orange County District Attorney’s Office removed from prosecuting the Dekraai case, a ruling that is under appeal.

Sanders argued that Conley could be called as a witness on the use of jailhouse informants, and he also contended that the judge demonstrated bias when arguing against his dismissal from the case.

Orange County prosecutors countered that nothing the defense claimed should lead to Conley’s disqualification.

Senior Deputy District Attorney Matt Murphy argued that there was no evidence of outrageous governmental misconduct -- as was claimed in the Dekraai case -- because the Orange County Sheriff’s Department was not part of the Wozniak prosecution.

Costa Mesa police led the Wozniak investigation, Murphy said.

The prosecutor argued the only time his team interacted with the sheriff was when the defense ignored requests for information backing a claim Wozniak’s jailers conspired to have him appear on MSNBC’s “Lockup” program to damage his case.

The producer of the program, Suzanne Ali, has denied that Wozniak’s jailers helped arrange for the interview. Ali told investigators she picked Wozniak out of a crowd of inmates because of his height, ill-fitting jail jumpsuit and “actor’s smile.”

Attorneys for NBC and 44 Blue Productions, which produced “Lockup,” have argued that Wozniak didn’t say anything incriminating in the interview.

Murphy also reiterated that he and his team had no idea Wozniak did the interview, and he alerted Sanders “as a professional courtesy.”

Prosecutors argued that any evidence from the informant wouldn’t be used in Wozniak’s trial. Also, the informant -- Fernando Perez -- was not officially a government informant at the time he chatted with Wozniak.

Wozniak is accused of shooting Samuel Herr after luring him to the Los Alamitos Joint Forces military base in May 2010. Prosecutors allege he then used the victim’s cell phone to trick his friend, Juri Kibuishi, into going to Herr’s Costa Mesa apartment, where the defendant gunned her down and then made it look like Herr killed her during a sexual assault. Wozniak then allegedly returned to the base to dismember Herr.

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City news Service