Category: Taxpayer Clusterfuck

Editorial – This District Attorney Tony Rackauckas’ Office and the Courts in Orange County are a Disgusting Hellhole of Corruption – Lies – Rigged Juries – Kiddie Porn Judges – A Psycho Asian Chief of Staff – and Boy Crazy – Republican DA Interns –

California declines to file charges in O.C. courthouse brawl tied to informant scandal

No criminal charges will be filed in the March 9 courthouse brawl between an Orange County District Attorney’s investigator and a defense lawyer who won a victory in the county’s jailhouse informant controversy, state prosecutors said Thursday.

State Attorney General Kamala Harris’ office concluded it was unclear whether either investigator Dillon Alley or Orange attorney James Crawford was criminally at fault in the bloody fight in a court hallway. The state investigated the incident because the involvement of a local District Attorney’s Office investigator created a conflict for that office.

“Both parties tell a different story about how the fight started, and both have two to three witnesses who fully corroborate their version of events,” Senior Assistant Attorney General Julie L. Garland wrote in a letter Thursday to Crawford’s attorney. “Because of the conflicting evidence it is not clear what party was the initial aggressor.”

The fight was not captured by the court’s surveillance camera, the letter said.

Related: Read Harris’ letter about the investigation

“We support the Attorney General’s decision to clear the OCDA investigator involved in the courthouse altercation. We will continue our own review of the facts, including any new information we receive from the AG, to fully determine what happened on that date,” the office of District Attorney Tony Rackauckas said in a statement.

The letter ends a nearly three-month investigation and was issued on the same day that the Register published a story in which former state Attorney General John Van de Kamp said the probe was taking too much time.

The investigation included nearly a dozen follow-up interviews as well as a review of medical records, surveillance video and witness declarations, the letter said.

The altercation, to some, was indicative of the heated feelings on both sides of the two-year-controversy over whether prosecutors and police in Orange County improperly used jailhouse informants to get confessions and withheld evidence from defense attorneys.

Using snitches is legal, except when the target is represented by an attorney and has been formally charged.

At least six murder and attempted murder cases have unraveled in the snitch crisis, resulting in overturned convictions, reduced penalties and dropped charges.

Crawford was fresh from winning a new trial for a man twice convicted in the double murder of a pregnant woman when he says he was attacked from behind by Alley.

Crawford and Alley had exchanged expletives about the informant controversy when Alley slammed Crawford’s face into a wood bench outside Superior Court Department 40 in Santa Ana and pummeled his head, Crawford said. Crawford that day released photos of his injured face and bloody eye.

Witnesses for Alley agreed both men traded words angrily, but said Crawford took the first swing at the DA’s investigator and was to blame for the escalating tension.

https://www.ocregister.com/articles/attorney-718066-crawford-alley.html
https://www.ocweekly.com/news/boy-crazy-6369193
https://www.ocregister.com/articles/kline-59382-court-computer.html
https://www.ocweekly.com/news/illegally-park-ed-6402361
https://voiceofoc.org/2015/04/das-charity-events-prompt-questions-about-chief-of-staffs-side-business/