Las Vegas Prosecutors | Thomas L. Goldstein

Judge Opens Secret D.A. Records to Scrutiny

By Henry Weinstein, LA Times Staff Writer

A Los Angeles federal judge has opened the door for defense attorneys to conduct a potentially significant investigation of secret records on the district attorney's unethical use of jailhouse informants in the 1970s and '80s, legal experts said.

U.S. District Judge A. Howard Matz ruled that attorneys for Thomas L. Goldstein could investigate charges of widespread corruption in the district attorney's use of such informants. Goldstein - who spent 24 years wrongfully imprisoned on murder charges, partly on the word of a jailhouse informant - filed a civil rights lawsuit against Los Angeles County and Long Beach after he was freed last year.

Matz emphasized in his ruling that Goldstein's case "does not focus on a violation limited to one actual prosecution."

"Plaintiff claims that decades-long operations of the largest prosecutor's office in the United States violated constitutional rights of many individuals," Matz wrote. "The practices consisted of failing to provide required ethical supervision and discipline; creating barriers to the dissemination of information within its ranks; assigning personnel in a manner that perpetuated these violations; and ignoring findings of an investigative body."

After problems with jailhouse informants erupted in 1988, a special county grand jury was convened, which two years later issued a report saying that the district attorney's office had "failed to fulfill the ethical responsibilities required of a public prosecutor."

The investigation, which showed that prosecutors frequently presented the same dubious informants in multiple cases without telling defense attorneys, led to a significant reduction in their use.

But the district attorney failed to ensure that all attorneys in the office shared information about deals they had cut to persuade informants to testify, Goldstein's lawyers charged in their suit. Goldstein also said prosecutors had exhibited a pattern of presenting false confessions obtained by jailhouse informants.

Gigi Gordon, the Los Angeles defense attorney who played a critical role in unearthing the way jailhouse informants were used in the 1970s and '80s, said, "There is documentation about this which I have seen that it was quite deliberate" that the district attorney's office avoided setting up a system to distribute information about rewards for jailhouse informants.

"It was understood that if they did do it, they would have to give up a huge amount of information," Gordon said.

Prosecutors by law must disclose to the defense all exculpatory information, and, since a 1972 Supreme Court ruling, have been required to reveal any benefits given in exchange for informants' testimony.

Sandi Gibbons, a spokeswoman for Dist. Atty. Steve Cooley, declined to comment on the ruling, except to say, "We would defer to our attorneys on this, the county counsel.''

Deputy County Counsel Roger Granbo said the county is thinking about an appeal.

Pasadena attorney Ronald O. Kaye, Goldstein's lead lawyer, said he was very pleased with Matz's "courageous" ruling. Kaye said he and his colleagues would pursue extensive discovery that he believed would reveal heretofore undisclosed information about the use of jailhouse informants at the time of Goldstein's case and afterward.

Long Beach police officers arrested Goldstein in November 1979 on suspicion of the shotgun slaying of John McGinest. Goldstein was prosecuted by Deputy Dist. Atty. Timothy Browne, who has since retired.

Goldstein's conviction was based largely on the testimony of an eyewitness who later recanted and of a jailhouse informant who a judge later said "fits the profile of the dishonest jailhouse informant."

A Marine veteran who served in Vietnam, Goldstein, now 56, maintained from the start that he was innocent. He was released 16 months ago after five federal judges ruled that his constitutional rights had been violated. A state court judge dismissed the charges against him "in furtherance of justice."

That judge cited a lack of evidence against Goldstein and the "cancerous nature" of the case.

Prosecutors sat mute in the courtroom during Goldstein's trial when jailhouse informant Edward F. Fink lied in testifying that he was getting nothing in return for his testimony, court records show.

In reality, Fink received significant benefits for his testimony, a point emphasized by federal judges who overturned Goldstein's conviction. Prosecutors dropped one case against Fink and reduced charges in another. Fink, who had three felony convictions and a heroin habit, was arrested at least 35 times, including 14 times in Long Beach. He died in 1994.

Goldstein asserted in his civil rights suit that the district attorney had violated his constitutional rights by having a policy and practice of "using confessions obtained by jailhouse informants which were false and fabricated."

The suit also contended that the district attorney's office had a policy of "failing to disseminate" information within the office "about the benefits jailhouse informants receive in exchange for assistance in securing convictions."

Goldstein's attorneys also asserted that the county "failed to create a system and failed to train deputy district attorneys who handle jailhouse informants" despite being aware of "the obvious risks of not creating such a system."

Moreover, the suit alleged that in the late 1970s, before Goldstein's prosecution and 1980 conviction, "two prosecutorial agencies conducted inquiries into claims by a jailhouse informant that he knew of improper conduct by" district attorney's office personnel "with regard to confessions allegedly made to a jailhouse informant."

Those inquiries and the conclusions that the agencies reached were "never indexed or widely distributed" within the district attorney's office, "and subsequently the informant served repeatedly as a witness in criminal trials." The informants were not identified in the suit.

Even before Goldstein was prosecuted, his attorneys asserted, the district attorney's office "considered the creation of a system to track the benefits provided to jailhouse informants and other impeachment information, but no such system was instituted."

"This has far-reaching implications," said Loyola University law professor Laurie Levenson, a former federal prosecutor who sat on a blue-ribbon commission that reviewed the operations of the district attorney's office in the mid-1990s.

Matz's ruling could "really shake things up" in the district attorney's office, she said. "This is open season on looking into how they handle disclosure and other ethical issues."

Gordon said she had once obtained a court order that gave her access to secret information grand jurors saw when they were investigating jailhouse informants. But before she could look at it, prosecutors dismissed the case against her client.

"There is information in transcripts sitting in a safe that is relevant to the claims in this case," Gordon said. Matz's ruling, she said, gives Goldstein's lawyers "a clear shot" at obtaining that material.

In another part of his ruling, Matz dismissed claims that Deputy Dist. Attys. Ann Ingalls and Patrick Connolly kept Goldstein incarcerated after a federal appeals court ordered him released pending a possible retrial. Matz ruled that the prosecutors were immune from the suit.

Truth can never be told so as to be understood, and not be believ'd. William Blake, The Proverbs of Hell

Truth suppress'd, whether by courts or crooks, will find an avenue to be told. Sheila Steele, injusticebusters.com

If you hold the mouth of Truth, It will burst out its rib-cage. Somali proverb

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Publisher : Sheila Steele

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injusticebusters court advice :

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Why you should dump your preliminary hearing (written July 1998 and still valid)

 

Sermonette: The Naked Truth -- (You will find links to many more sermonettes in the sidebar on this page

Another target of Dueck's malice: : Wilf Hathway

Our activism contributed greatly to the good vibes which happened around the civil trial.

Index to the stories on this website

This is not regularly updated so if you are looking for a particular story and you have a name or keyword, please use the site search engine(at the bottom of the page) which IS regularly updated

Index to Saskatoon Police stories

This is a pretty good scrapbook for the 1998-2002 period.

Inquiry into the malicious prosecution of David Milgaard untanling 36 years of Saskatchewan police and Crown misconduct: : Opening day 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 |

Stephen Williams: Canadian writer subject to Stasi-like treatment by Canadian police

Terry Arnold: : Snitch a suicide?

RCMP scenario stings: Brian Hutchinson starts digging

Gary wells: Faulty eye-witness testimony

Tulia, Texas

Gilmer, Texas

Willie Upshaw

Wrongfully convicted in Canada

Foster Parent false accusations

Martensville

Don Smith obscenity trial: an obscene conviction

James Lockyer

Hurricane Carter

Johnny Cochran speaks up for Bill Sampson

Vopnis

Abdulai Mohamed

Nfld Defamation story:

Wanda Young

Racism in the Federal Civil Service

The Terrible Story behind the Atif Rafay and Sebastian Burns convictions

Trial set for June 15

We know part of this disclosure is a forged statement and perjured affidavit from a Winnipeg cop

The Crown is still fighting Fred Poirier -- and they are losing. Secret Commissions Case from Northern B.C.

 

 

2005: In the United States the proven wrongful convictions just keep coming at us!

 

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Brandon Morin:

Convicted in Oregon

of rapes which did not happen

This website has good information about Measure 11 -- Oregon's Mandatory Sentencing requirements which have been in place since 1994. In this case we see how the combination of a flawed grand jury system and prosecutors who seek not justice but convictions is a recipe for wrongful convictions.

 

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Canadians who have been wrongfully convicted because of improper investigations combined with zealous Crown

A round-up of wrongful convictions in Canada

Robert Baltovich

Michael Burns

Sebastian Burns

Rodney Cain

Wilbert Coffin (hanged, 1953)

Jason Dix

Jim Driskell

Jody Druken

Randy Druken

Hugues Duguay

Michel Dumont

Peter Frumusa

Walter Gillespie and Robert Mailman

Clayton Johnson

Yvonne Johnson

Herman Kaglik

Darren Koehn

Kulaveeringsam "Kulam" Karthiresu

Stephen Leadbeater

Donald Marshall

Chris McCullough

Michael McTaggart

Felix Michaud

David Milgaard

Guy Paul Morin

Shannon Murrin

Jamie Nelson

Greg Parsons

Benoit Proulx

Atif Rafay

Louise Reynolds

Thomas Sophonow

Gary Staples

Billy Taillefer

Steven Truscott

Joe Warren

Leon Walchuk

 

AIDWYC

Innocence Project (Canada)

Innocence Project (U.S.)

Northwest Law Center on Wrongful Convictions

 

Kirstin Lobato

Jeffrey Scott Hornoff

Willie Upshaw

Hurricane Carter

Guildford 4

Birmingham 6

Amirault

Houston

U.S. wrongful convictions: Exonerateed

Kirk Bloodsworth

Laurence Adams

Ludrate Burton

Stephen Cowans

Wilton Dedge

Albert Johnson

Kenneth Marsh

Dwayne McKinney

James Bernard Parker

Peter Reilly

Peter Rose

Sylvester Smith

Clifford St. Joseph

John Stoll

Marty Tankleff

Wilton Dedge

Ray Krone

 

Still working on it:

Dennis Deschaine

Dennis Perry

Tim Sandfort

 

 

Revitalizing the archives From 1998 until 2002, injusticebusters was in the throes of identity crisis. What was it? What were we doing? We grappled with editorial policy at the same time we were learning the nuts and bolts of building and posting a website. Once we had a secure, paid site I had full editorial control, although I talked regularly to Richard Klassen who was forced to move his family several times and did not always have access to the internet. Rick's pages: one | two We posted our earliest and later actions. Early versions of the site can be found on the Wayback Machine. I began following other threads to stories of police and prosecutorial misconduct and the site's character took on another facet: a newsclipping scrapbook where stories could live longer than they would in print form. I also began picking up other stories of wrongfully convicted people. It was an explosion. By 2003 there were over 700 pages. I also had contact with several other people (Don Smith, Leon Walchuk, Monique Turenne, the Vopnis) and kept these stories going. It was the story of the Ross children's treatment at the hands of the Saskatchewan government which grabbed the attention of The Fifth Estate. The civil claim (The $10M Lawsuit as we called it) was only mentioned briefly at the end of their show which aired in November, 2000. When Richard Klassen began to make progress in bringing his civil claim to court, the government and police defendants alleged he was breaking the rules of court by publishing discovery material on the internet. MacNeil clinic (the document which started it all) The Thompson Papers Carol Bunko-Ruys reports This claim was absolutely false. However, rather than risk being thrown out of his civil claim, Klassen undertook before Judge Mona Dovall to sever all ties with the website. The court fights: Les Perreaux report QB271 These pages have links which lead to other pages from that era. Now that some of the dust has settled, I have been going back through the material we had posted in the early days. In the spirit of keeping the scrapbook alive, I have been reformatting and placing links. The original material remains intact. I hope the information, which chronicles our struggle is useful to you. The identity crisis is over. We know who we are --Sheila Steele, March 28, 2005

 

Blogging

Blogging has been in the news. It is the new, trendy thing with 40,000 new blogs being created each day. I established a blog for this website last September and it is now "taking off." These are a few of the pages with ongoing discussions.

Tasering Mary Lutz

Saskatchewan Centenary

Quint Blog discussion

Rotten apples in the Saskatoon Police

Blogging for choice

Michael Cardamone witch hunt

Implement recommendations of public inquiries

Stealing from the poor

Vancouver's killer cops

Tisdale rapists appeal

Winnipeg police misdeeds

Milgaard Inquiry

Chief Sabo: can he be trusted?

The Old Boys' Club Must Go!

Vancouver activists

John Hudak: Falsely accused mountie

City of intolerance

Constable Larry Lockwood: Exciteable!

Eric Cline

This is a great way for like-minded people to communicate and share our views. It is easier than making a website and marginally more difficult than a forum.

People who want to contribute simply have to punch the "comment" link and they will be taken to a page with a box which allows them to write their comment, preview and post it. It takes a while for the comment to show up and some people get impatient and repost. That's fine, I trash the duplicate posts and no harm done.

Please, please give it a try. The internet is distinguished from other media in that it is really and truly interactive. Blogging makes it possible to express your viewpoint even if you don't have a computer. You can go to the library or a friend's place or an internet cafe. Once you've mastered the basics (and believe me, if I can do it, you can do it) you will be participating in one of the most democratic -- and potentially powerful -- media the world as we know it has ever seen.

Come on. Don't be shy. Join the Weblog World! -- Sheila Steele, March 20, 2005

Toronto Police paid out $30M in secretly resolved claims over last five years