SANTA ANA, Calif. (CN) – Nearly six years after the worst mass murder in Orange County, California, history, a state court judge ruled Friday that convicted killer Scott Dekraai cannot be sentenced to death because law enforcement officials repeatedly withheld information about their pervasive, illegal use of informants in county jails.
In a blistering ruling, Orange County Superior Court Judge Thomas Goethals said it would “be unconscionable, perhaps even cowardly” for him to ignore “the continuous course of misconduct” carried out by the county sheriff’s department and district attorney’s office in not fully obeying his discovery orders concerning jailhouse informants.
Therefore, he said, he was compelled “to impose a sanction that not long ago would have been unthinkable” – striking the death penalty from the case.
Goethals’ decision caps what became a wide-ranging scandal over jailhouse informants in Orange County that attracted national attention.
Unless an appellate court reverses the ruling, Dekraai will be sentenced Sept. 22 to eight consecutive life terms without the possibility of parole.
“The court finds that the prosecution team is unable and/or unwilling to comply fully with these lawful orders that remain in full force and effect. As a result, this court now exercises its discretion to strike the death penalty as a potential punishment for this defendant, despite the horrendous nature of his crimes,” Goethals ruled.
“This is not a punitive sanction designed to punish the prosecution team for past misconduct. Rather, it is a remedial sanction necessitated by the ongoing prosecutorial misconduct related to discovery proceedings which has effectively compromised this defendant’s right to procedural and substantive due process and prospectively to a fair penalty trial.”
Deputy Attorney General Michael T. Murphy said his office would study Goethals’ 19-page ruling before deciding whether to ask the Fourth Appellate District to intervene.
But in formal statements, both the district attorney’s office and the sheriff’s department said they are disappointed by the decision.
“Whether some members of the Orange County Sheriff’s Department failed to produce tangential information in a timely manner has nothing to do with what Dekraai did and the fact that Dekraai deserves the death penalty,” the DA’s office said.
In its statement, the sheriff’s department said it believed Dekraai would have received a fair trial on sentencing “notwithstanding the issues that were raised by the court’s ruling.
“The decision to remove the death penalty rests at the feet of Judge Geothals and nobody else,” the department added.
Assistant Public Defender Scott Sanders said he believes Goethals made the right decision.
“To make this ruling took some judicial courage,” he said.
Sanders said he believes there are hundreds of other cases in the county dating back as far as 30 years in which informants were used illegally.
A number of family members of victims reportedly expressed relief Friday that the six-year-old prosecution may be nearly done. Several had opposed the death penalty from the beginning, while others have urged Dekraai’s execution.
Paul Caouette, who has favored the death penalty, said he has “mixed feelings” about Goethals’ decision but said it “provides some kind of closure.”
Sanders said the families’ relief “was the best news.”