Defense attorneys said last year they believe 21 defendants accused of murder and other serious felonies were affected by the scandal and had their convictions vacated, sentences reduced or new trials ordered. It was around that time the U.S. Department of Justice’s civil rights division found that the Orange County Sheriff’s Department and district attorney’s office systematically violated the rights of defendants from 2007 to 2016 by using informants to elicit confessions.
Now, officials say the number of known cases involving such snitches is more than twice what was previously known, and the public defender who first uncovered it believes it is now the largest documented scandal involving the illegal mishandling of informants.
“We knew already it was the longest-running and most extensive informant scandal in U.S. history,” said Public Defender Scott Sanders, who first raised the allegations in 2014. “It was far larger than we realized.”
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Nearly a decade after the scandal was unearthed, Sanders said there are still new cases being found in which the use of informants was hidden in court.
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The use of informants in itself is not illegal, but sheriff‘s officials and prosecutors were accused of using snitches after inmates had been charged — a violation of the 6th Amendment. Law enforcement officials were also accused of hiding the fact that informants were used during trial or what benefits the informants received in exchange for their cooperation with law enforcement.