An Orange County judge on Monday, Aug. 9, overturned the 2010 jury conviction of a man serving life in prison for the killing of a marijuana dealer in Sunset Beach because sheriff’s deputies refuse to testify about misusing jailhouse informants and withholding information.
Superior Court Judge Patrick Donohue had indicated last week he would set aside the conviction of Paul Gentile Smith, who was found guilty in the 1988 slaying of Robert Haugen. Haugen, a childhood friend of Smith’s who supplied him with marijuana, was stabbed 18 times and his nude remains were torched.
Donohue indicated a new trial would be held, and ordered Smith to return to court on Friday, Aug. 13, for arraignment.
The District Attorney’s Office moved to dismiss Smith’s conviction because Orange County sheriff’s deputies and prosecutors allegedly violated his constitutional rights by placing him in a cell where he was targeted by three jailhouse informants and then telling defense attorneys about only one. Some deputies indicated last week that they would not testify at a hearing into their use of jailhouse informants.
The scheduled hearing was an offshoot of the “snitch scandal,” the discovery in 2014 by Assistant Public Defender Scott Sanders that prosecutors and deputies had built a secret cadre of jailhouse informants to illegally coax confessions from inmates. It is illegal to use informants on defendants who have lawyers and have been formerly charged. The extent of the informant use was withheld from defense lawyers.
The snitch operation unfolded during hearings for mass murderer Scott Dekraai, who killed eight people in October 2011 at a Seal Beach salon but escaped the death penalty and received life in prison because of the misconduct.
On Friday, sheriff’s deputies blamed prosecutors for not turning over evidence to defense attorneys in the Smith case until nine years after the trial. That evidence was a hidden CD recording of an jailhouse informant revealing that three snitches were used on Smith, even though only one testified at trial.
“The deputies did their job by booking the evidence. Providing evidence to the defense is the job of the D.A.,” said Juan Viramontes, president of the Association of Orange County Deputy Sheriffs.
District Attorney Todd Spitzer acknowledged the blunder committed by the previous administration of the District Attorney’s Office.
“It is indisputable that an interview of an informant related to this defendant existed and was in the possession of the Orange County Sheriff’s Department,” Spitzer said. “What is not in dispute is the fact that the prosecutor had a duty to discover that to the defense.”
This story is developing. Check back for updates.
Source: Orange County Register
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