In a courtroom confrontation years in the making, a former high-ranking Orange County prosecutor, now a judge, testified Monday, June 10, that he didn’t know why evidence in a 2010 murder case was not turned over to defense attorneys as required by law.
Orange County Superior Court Judge Ebrahim Baytieh made a rare appearance on the witness stand during a hearing on whether he illegally withheld evidence while prosecuting the case 14 years ago against defendant Paul Gentile Smith.
“I don’t know why it happened,” Baytieh testified under questioning by Orange County Assistant Public Defender Scott Sanders, who for years has pushed to hold the former prosecutor accountable for the lack of disclosure.
Homicide occurred in 1988
Smith is facing a retrial on charges that he fatally stabbed his boyhood friend and sometimes marijuana dealer, Robert Haugen, in Sunset Beach in 1988.
Smith’s conviction was overturned in 2021 amid allegations that his civil rights were violated when evidence was withheld about the use of jailhouse informants. Three informants were used to pry incriminating evidence from Smith, but only one informant was disclosed to the defense.
Sanders is attempting to get the charges against Smith dismissed on grounds of “outrageous government conduct.” The case is being held before San Diego County Superior Court Judge Daniel Goldstein to avoid a conflict because Baytieh sits on the Orange County bench.
Rivals face off
The verbal jousting between Sanders and Baytieh attracted some 31 people to watch on a livestream feed, as the defense attorney pushed the ex-prosecutor to answer how such a highly regarded lawyer could botch the disclosure of evidence. Baytieh, in return, responded in frustration that Sanders was asking convoluted questions and misquoting his answers.
Baytieh testified that he didn’t receive evidence that multiple jailhouse informants were used to build a murder case against Smith until years after the trial. He said he believed at the time that the extra informants were working on a separate case against Smith for attempting to hire a hitman to kill witnesses and an Orange County sheriff’s detective.
As soon as he found out the informants also were gathering evidence on the Haugen slaying, Baytieh testified, he turned over the evidence to Smith’s defense lawyers.
Baytieh also said he regrets using a jailhouse informant in the first place, triggering the need to disclose information on the other informants and thus creating the whole issue.
“I think the biggest mistake I made now … was calling (Art) Palacios to testify,” Baytieh said.
Sheriff’s log revealing
Baytieh testified that it wasn’t until 2016, when a special log kept by sheriff’s deputies was released, that he first learned that three jailhouse informants asked to be put in the same dayroom with Smith so they could get incriminating information from him.
And it wasn’t until 2019, when Baytieh said he was questioned by federal civil rights investigators, that he learned of a taped interview with an informant that outlined a plan for multiple informants to work on Smith. The plan violated Smith’s constitutional right to have an attorney present during questioning under the 1964 ruling, Massiah v. United States.
Baytieh said he quickly obtained recordings of that interview and disclosed them to the defense.
“I felt I fulfilled my discovery obligation,” Baytieh said.
Sheriff’s officials have said, however, the recordings had been properly booked into evidence and, therefore, were available to be disclosed before the trial.
In any case, Baytieh said he didn’t believe the additional evidence would have affected the outcome of the case in 2010.
Relied on others
Baytieh also testified he didn’t investigate on his own why the information didn’t get turned over in a timely manner, partly because sheriff’s detectives had obtained lawyers and refused to talk to the district attorney’s office. He also said the matter was already being investigated as part of a wider probe into the sheriff’s log by other prosecutors.
While Baytieh accepted ultimate responsibility for fulfilling the obligation for disclosure, he said law enforcement was responsible for making sure the prosecution got the evidence, and that paralegals were the ones who disseminated the evidence to the defense.
Baytieh, who later in his career was in charge of training other prosecutors in the proper use of informants, acknowledged Monday that he didn’t always physically examine the evidence, Rather, he testified that he relied on police reports, prompting a response from Judge Goldstein: “You’re prosecuting some high-profile homicide cases and you don’t go look at the evidence?”
Baytieh answered that much of the evidence in the Smith case had been photographed and consisted largely of DNA swabs and towels.
He also said he didn’t read confidential informant files as a prosecutor, but depended on district attorney investigators to summarize the contents for him to determine what would be turned over to defense attorneys in discovery.
‘Profound and unfortunate time’
Baytieh’s testimony is the latest chapter in the scandal over Orange County’s secret use of jailhouse informants, which resulted in a blistering rebuke in 2022 by the U.S. Department of Justice. The scandal also removed the death penalty as an option for mass killer Scott Dekraai, who instead received multiple life sentences for killing eight people in a 2011 shooting rampage at a Seal Beach beauty salon.
“We were going through a profound and unfortunate time, the criminal justice system in Orange County,” Baytieh said.
He is scheduled to be back on the witness stand Tuesday.