The current rendition of the Orange County Grand Jury proved its uselessness today by releasing a report that fawns over the government agency that repeatedly cheated by secretly monitoring jailhouse attorney-client phone calls.
We know that deputies purposefully violated that sacred constitutional protection dozens and dozens of times but the exact number has yet to be determined because Orange County Sheriff’s Department (OCSD) managers quickly flew into coverup mode upon the scandal’s forced revelation last year.
There is only one reason for a deputy to conduct such clandestine surveillance: it’s to illegally gain intelligence that can tilt a criminal trial in favor of the government without detection.
After not really looking, this Grand Jury announced it couldn’t find a single example of the monitoring used against a defendant.
Surprising?
Well, these jurors—picked by establishment players for the job precisely because they are so gullible to local law enforcement organizations’ propaganda—wouldn’t know where to find such information if it were delivered to their front door and written in size 20 font.
Additionally, the primary source for their naive assertion is, of course, the OCSD, an agency chronically caught running unethical scams.
If the Grand Jury relied almost exclusively on the bureaucrats working at ground zero in another OCSD cheating scandal—and it did, what other kind of hogwash was it willing to regurgitate to the public?
Try this: The Grand Jury “found that all involved parties handled this situation professionally, with transparency and with good intentions.”
Grab a hood, goggles and a thick raincoat; the BS continued spewing.
“To the OCSD’s and the County’s credit, they are tackling [the scandal] head-on and may easily become leaders in the State and the United States in finding the most desirable solution for providing legally privileged communications to inmates.”
Year after year, our Grand Jury proves it is the protector of powerful government insiders and a bludgeon against whistleblowers and citizens who’d appreciate a bit more honesty in local affairs.
While the jurors were in public relations machine mode for OCSD, why not top it off with a visual trick?
They added a picture to the report that misleads. It’s the image of inmates standing at jailhouse telephones with warning signs that their calls “may be recorded and monitored.”
Nobody—nobody—has argued that inmates’ calls to non-lawyers aren’t fair game, but they nonetheless titled their report: “Your Call May Be Recorded.”
Did the jurors think up this ruse on their own? Nope, once again, they were lemmings. Note the source of the diversionary photo:
Perhaps, if this Grand Jury wanted to be slightly helpful, they could have recommended warning posters be securely taped to every OCSD deputy’s desk: Stop listening to attorney-client calls. You habitual cheaters!
A previous Grand Jury also showed its warped colors.
See: “Who Tried to Rescue Orange County DA and Sheriff from their Snitch Scandal,” Nov. 15, 2017.
CNN-featured investigative reporter R. Scott Moxley has won Journalist of the Year honors at the Los Angeles Press Club; been named Distinguished Journalist of the Year by the LA Society of Professional Journalists; obtained one of the last exclusive prison interviews with Charles Manson disciple Susan Atkins; won inclusion in Jeffrey Toobin’s The Best American Crime Reporting for his coverage of a white supremacist’s senseless murder of a beloved Vietnamese refugee; launched multi-year probes that resulted in the FBI arrests and convictions of the top three ranking members of the Orange County Sheriff’s Department; and gained praise from New York Times Magazine writers for his “herculean job” exposing entrenched Southern California law enforcement corruption.
:: facepalm ::