OCDA Spitzer heeds warnings from Seal Beach mass killing as he considers death penalty in Orange shooting

Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer stood before news cameras after four people died in a violent rampage this week in Orange and harkened back nearly 10 years ago to a massacre that left eight people dead in Seal Beach.

Spitzer told reporters he would not make the same mistakes as his predecessor, Tony Rackauckas, who tearfully promised just two days after the killings to deliver the death penalty against the Seal Beach shooter – and then failed spectacularly after cutting corners in the case.

Spitzer said he would be more deliberative, more careful about deciding whether to seek the death penalty against the suspected Orange shooter, Aminadab Gaxiola Gonzalez, despite the emotional nature of the killings, including the death of a 9-year-old boy.

“I won’t be rushed,” Spitzer said. “The defendant … deserves all due consideration. Asking a jury to pass down a verdict of death is the most serious consequence we ask.”

Spitzer said he has reviewed nearly 20 murders over the last two years and has not sought the death penalty in any of those cases.

Make no mistake, Spitzer said, the rampage Wednesday, March 31 in Orange qualifies for death penalty consideration, because there are multiple victims and because the shooter appeared to padlock the gates, blocking police from entering.

On Friday, Spitzer’s office filed multiple counts of murder and attempted murder against Gonzalez, as well as special circumstance enhancements that keep his options open on seeking the death penalty.

Responding Thursday to a reporter who ardently pushed the idea of the death penalty,  Spitzer said there is no reason to rush.

“I want to have all the facts in the case before that very important decision is made,” Spitzer said. “What I want everybody to understand fully is we are going to do everything correctly. We are not going to rush. And we are not going to make mistakes. We are going to proceed appropriately, carefully and within the confines of the law. … In the last mass shooting here in Orange County, in Seal Beach, there were serious mistakes that were made by the prosecution team.”

In a later interview, Spitzer added, “We don’t get to cut corners, bend the rules, just because the defendant is accused in a massive, horrific murder. There is not going to be any exploitation of this case.”

Spitzer’s comments were met with skepticism from the lawyer representing Gonzalez, who said Spitzer had already speculated about the case and gave more details than necessary during news conferences.

“If he is sincere about respecting the judicial process, I expect that means he and his office will refrain from any more public statements that involve speculation – such as the boy died in his mother’s arms –  or the release of any more inflammatory details – such as the gates being padlocked – that might serve to influence or taint the potential jury pool and inhibit the ability to have a fair trial in this county,” said Ken Morrison, assistant public defender.

Legal experts explained the law requires Spitzer to consider mitigating factors – such as the suspect’s childhood – before deciding whether to seek death.

“The fact that a case is death-eligible doesn’t mean the death penalty is appropriate,” said Lawrence Rosenthal, a professor at Dale E. Fowler School of Law at Chapman University. “The easiest thing to do is announce you’re going for the death penalty. The responsible thing to do is to assess all the evidence before making a decision, the mitigating and aggravating evidence.”

Rosenthal, a formal federal prosecutor, said seeking the death penalty is not just a legal decision, it’s a moral decision.

“There are very few people who are just sociopaths,” he said. “You hear about cases where ‘he’s an animal’ and then you learn he was abused as a child.”

Some legal experts applauded Spitzer’s reluctance to be swept up in the emotion of the case,  Rackauckas’ first misstep in the case against Seal Beach shooter Scott Dekraai.

The death penalty, they say, became the only goal amid a win-at-all-cost mindset that pushed the Dekraai case off the rails.

The Dekraai prosecutors were afraid he would lodge an insanity defense, which worked in 1976 for Edward Allaway, who shot and killed seven people at Cal State Fullerton. He remains incarcerated in a state hospital.

In an attempt to thwart that defense, prosecutors and police officers used invalid documents to get Dekraai’s records from his private psychologist. They also bugged Dekraai’s cell and used a jailhouse informant to elicit evidence from him. This violation of Dekraai’s right to have a lawyer present was seen in other cases where jailhouse informants were misused.

Because of the cheating, at least seven felony cases unraveled and a Superior Court judge banned the entire 250-member district attorney’s office from the Dekraai prosecution. The judge also took the death penalty off the table for Dekraai in favor of multiple life terms in prison.

Spitzer used the controversy to unseat Rackauckas in 2018, pledging to clean up the office.

On Friday, Spitzer said no jailhouse informants would be used in the case against Gonzalez.

Observers, such as Rosenthal, said Rackauckas lost sight of Dekraai’s constitutional rights. That’s how over the top prosecutors had become in their zeal to win.

There was no accountability in the Rackauckas administration, Rosenthal said.

“A distressing lack of supervision skewed (the office),” he said.

Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of Berkeley Law, said Spitzer would do well to learn these lessons from the so-called snitch scandal: Don’t violate suspects’ rights; If caught, don’t cover it up.

“It’s was such a deliberate attempt (under Rackauckas) to violate the law,” Chemerinsky said. “It’s not a hard set of rules to comply with.”

In the Orange shooting, Spitzer said things will be different this time.

“There’s been a lot of lessons learned and I’ve studied them all,” he said. “I will sit down with the victims’ families when it is time and I will not make any promises.”

Source: Orange County Register