Judge to Rule Monday on Whether Dekraai's Constitutional Rights Were Violated

By PAUL ANDERSON
City News Service

An Orange County Superior Court judge today announced he will issue a ruling Monday on allegations by a defense attorney who alleges a conspiracy among sheriff’s investigators and prosecutors to violate the constitutional rights of the worst mass killer in Orange County history and other defendants.

Attorneys were expected to make final arguments in the case Thursday that began with a jailhouse recording of Scott Dekraai appearing to brag about gunning down eight people and nearly killing a ninth in Seal Beach.

Dekraai’s attorneys alleged their client’s constitutional rights were violated when a jailhouse snitch questioned him about the killings, and a 505- page motion was filed at the beginning of the year alleging similar wrongdoing in multiple cases on the handling of the informants.

Prosecutors have since given up trying to have jurors hear the tape recording in the penalty phase of Dekraai’s trial. Dekraai pleaded guilty to the killings in May.

An evidentiary hearing on the allegations started in mid-March as top prosecutors, sheriff’s investigators and even Orange County Superior Court Judge Terri Flynn-Peister, a former federal prosecutor, testified.

Flynn-Peister was recalled as a witness today when a sheriff’s investigator appeared to contradict her claims that she did not have much to do with state prosecutors on a joint state and federal crackdown on the Mexican Mafia.

In what was already a remarkable hearing featuring a judge on the witness stand, Orange County Superior Court Judge Thomas Goethals questioned Flynn-Peister, as he did when she first testified, on the seeming contradictions in testimony from state prosecutors and sheriff’s investigators.

Goethals told the attorneys today that he intends to let them know what he will do with requests from Dekraai’s defense to have the death penalty removed as an option for prosecutors and to have the Orange County District Attorney’s Office removed from the case.

The attorneys were set to make final arguments on Friday, but Dekraai’s attorney, Scott Sanders of the Orange County Public Defender’s Office, told the judge he had received more information about a confidential informant who caught Dekraai bragging.

Sanders has alleged that the informant was put in a cell next to Dekraai to solicit incriminating evidence in violation of his constitutional rights since the killer was already represented by an attorney.

Assistant District Attorney Dan Wagner testified today that he was unaware of the informant’s criminal background when he was told of Dekraai’s cell being wired by investigators.

“The best I can reconstruct is it didn’t cross my mind” to check the informant’s background to see if he had a motive, such as a plea bargain, to help investigators, Wagner said.

It wasn’t until months later that he found out Deputy District Attorney Erik Petersen was prosecuting the informant, who had been having his case, in which he faced a life sentence, repeatedly rescheduled.

Wagner said his only thought then about the informant, who was working mostly on Mexican Mafia cases, was whether he was represented by the Public Defender’s 0ffice and if his attorney would have to declare a conflict. Wagner denied knowing Petersen had been rescheduling the informant’s sentencing and did not inquire about it.

“Doesn’t that strike you as a remarkable lack of curiosity?” Goethals asked Wagner.

“That’s a loaded way of putting it,” Wagner replied before acknowledging that he wished he had made further inquiries.

However, Wagner also testified that he did not anticipate using the informant as a witness in the Dekraai case and just wanted to use the taped statements.

“The tape would speak for itself,” Wagner testified, adding that the informant would seem an unreliable witness because he was a jailhouse snitch.

Wagner has acknowledged in earlier testimony that mistakes were made in the exchanging of evidence between prosecutors and defense attorneys. Prosecutors are being instructed on the process of exchanging evidence with defense attorneys as a result of Sanders’ allegations.

Much of the rest of today’s testimony involved sheriff’s Deputy Seth Tunstall’s claims that he was given a binder about the informant that was missing some documents.

Prosecutors have tried to make the case that federal investigators and prosecutors have withheld some information in the joint crackdown on the Mexican Mafia, leading to defense attorneys in state cases not receiving all the evidence owed to them.

Flynn-Peister testified that there were two sets of binders on “targets” in the Mexican Mafia crackdown with one being more abbreviated.

Tunstall, who worked on a task force that helped state and federal prosecutors, testified that he didn’t think he was allowed to tell Petersen, who was also on the task force, about the missing information in the binder on the informant. But Flynn-Peister denied ever ordering Tunstall not to talk to Petersen or share information with him.

Flynn-Peister said she never removed anything from the binders on any of the targets of the probe, including the Dekraai informant.