Prosecutors and sheriff’s deputies in California’s Orange County used jailhouse informants in an extraordinary and long-running scheme to illegally obtain confessions from criminal defendants, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is alleging in a new lawsuit. “For 30 years, the Orange County sheriff’s department and district attorney’s office have been operating an illegal informant program out of the jails,” the ACLU lawyer Brendan Hamme told the Guardian. Orange County Sheriff’s Department said it could not comment on pending litigation but insisted it had “cooperated fully” with state investigations. When Sanders requested more information, the district attorney’s office stonewalled. In Orange County, the scandal has been remarkable for the tenacity of the officials at the center of the storm.

Source: The Guardian April 04, 2018 13:30 UTC