SANTA ANA – A Superior Court judge removed the Orange County District Attorney’s Office from the case against the deadliest killer in county history, saying Thursday that the defendant’s right to a fair trial had been violated by false testimony and the withholding of evidence.

Judge Thomas M. Goethals, however, refused to block a potential death sentence for confessed mass murderer Scott Dekraai, whose penalty trial is scheduled to start March 30 for killing eight people at a Seal Beach hair salon in October 2011.

Goethals, instead, handed the case to the state Attorney General’s Office. He gave local prosecutors until March 20 to file an appeal.

District Attorney Tony Rackauckas declined comment.

In the ruling, Goethals concluded that two Orange County sheriff’s deputies intentionally lied or willfully withheld material evidence from the court. Goethals said he would let prosecutors decide if any charges should be filed against the deputies.

The veteran judge said he booted local prosecutors from the Dekraai case because of a conflict of interest between “their legal and ethical constraints, and peace officers who may try to cut legal corners for the sake of expediency or some other purpose.”

Said Goethals: “The District Attorney is responsible for the actions of his agents. In this case, the evidence demonstrates that some of those agents have habitually ignored the law over an extended period of time to the detriment of this defendent.”

Dekraai’s defense team used the violations to fuel an argument that Dekraai should not face execution because he wouldn’t get a fair penalty trial.

Assistant District Attorney Dan Wagner declined to comment on the judge’s ruling, but said the office would consider filing an appeal in a way that doesn’t delay the process much longer.

“It’s a very rare thing for a prosecutor’s office to be recused,” Wagner said.

Sheriff Sandra Hutchens said Thursday she is launching an investigation into the deputies and their testimony.

“We’re going to look at all the transcripts, all of the information and look at the facts,” Hutchens said, stressing that the department bears some responsibility for not training deputies to work with informants and testify.

Families of the victims attended the hearing and were devastated by the ruling, which they said would extend the long-delayed case.

“My nightmare continues. I’m stunned, angry, frustrated,” said Paul Wilson, husband of victim Christy Wilson.

“The fundamentals of the case is that he killed those eight people that day and he needs to pay for that, and now we’re going on three years and we’re starting all over again. I don’t understand it. There has to be a better answer.”

Dekraai’s attorney, Assistant Public Defender Scott Sanders, declined to comment after the ruling. However, in arguments before Goethals, Sanders said prosecutors should be more concerned about their police partners.

“There’s nothing more dangerous to a criminal justice system than an officer who will lie. Because when you see the lying at the rate and quantity that we saw here, and you think about what they do when nobody’s looking, it’s frightening,” Sanders said.

The ruling is the latest phase in a yearlong battle between the District Attorney’s Office and Dekraai’s defense team over the secret use of jailhouse informants and the systematic withholding of evidence turned in by those informants.

At least two murder cases and one case of attempted murder, most involving judges other than Goethals, were recently derailed after the discovery of a secret network of jailhouse snitches, some of them paid.

Sanders believes he has found potentially dozens of cases in which laws governing the use of informants were violated and information withheld from the defense. Prosecutors disagree with Sanders’ claims, saying the number of cases affected by jailhouse informants is much smaller and that they haven’t intentionally withheld information.

In the Dekraai case, Sanders discovered that authorities placed a microphone and recording equipment in Dekraai’s cell adjacent to a prolific jailhouse informant. Dekraai provided hour after hour of recorded, incriminating statements. He later pleaded guilty to the mass shooting.

Sanders argued that the use of an informant violated case law against eliciting statements from a defendant after he or she has retained a lawyer. From there, Sanders’ investigation mushroomed, with deputies being called to the witness stand to explain how informants ended up near certain inmates.

During their initial testimonies in 2014, deputies Seth Tunstall and Ben Garcia – whose jobs included handling informants – failed to mention the existence of TRED, a computerized database that tracks the movement of inmates within the jail.

The database, which Tunstall and Garcia used extensively, could have provided information that would have answered many of the questions being posed by Sanders and the judge.

Tunstall and Garcia, under oath, also minimized their contact with informants and their knowledge of informant violations.

Goethals concluded on Thursday that the two deputies lied or willfully withheld evidence.

“One is as bad as the other,” wrote Goethals.

The judge also faulted Tunstall and Deputy District Attorney Erik Petersen for falsely blaming a former federal prosecutor for what Goethals called a “serious discovery breach” in another case.

The deputies’ union said the deputies took their cue from prosecutors.

“The deputies in this case were not trained investigators, let alone homicide investigators. They are not educated in discovery requirements or investigative and informant protocols. The deputies involved relied on the prosecutors’ legal expertise,” said a statement from Tom Dominguez, president of the Association of Orange County Deputy Sheriffs.

Goethals‘ latest ruling was stronger than the one he made in August 2014, in which he found that prosecutorial misconduct had occurred but was likely unintentional. He also declined then to take the death penalty off the table for Dekraai.

While he again left Dekraai eligible for execution, Goethals set some ground rules on Thursday for the upcoming penalty phrase.

Prosecutors can only present evidence limited to the shooting, statements made by Dekraai before his booking into Orange County Jail, and evidence showing the impact on victims.

Contact the writer: tsaavedra@ocregister.com