SANTA ANA— Plaintiffs agreed to a settlement in P.E.O.P.L.E v. Rackauckas, a 2018 case brought by Orange County taxpayers and a coalition of criminal legal system advocates against the Orange County District Attorney’s Office and Sheriff’s Department that challenged OCDA’s and OCSD’s unlawful and unconstitutional jailhouse informant practices.
The seven-year litigation affixed a public spotlight on the OCDA’s and OCSD’s misconduct and included an important victory in the Court of Appeal that vindicated the rights of California taxpayers to bring these critical lawsuits enforcing constitutional limits on law enforcement. During the litigation, OCDA and OCSD made meaningful reforms to their jailhouse informant practices.
The settlement comes a decade after a landmark Orange County Superior Court decision barred OCDA from further prosecuting the case against the largest mass shooter in county history due to OCDA’s and OCSD’s jailhouse informant practices.
“After the biggest mass shooting in Orange County history, the murder victims’ families never received justice from the legal system,” said Bethany Webb, a plaintiff whose sister Laura was killed and whose mother was wounded in the 2011 Seal Beach mass shooting. “I sat in court for years because I wanted to stand where Laura couldn't and to find out exactly what happened and why. Instead, we had a front row seat to corruption as the case that changed so many people’s lives was overtaken by the jailhouse informant scandal. This is a case where the families never got a trial or the justice we deserved. We didn’t even get an apology from OCDA or OCSD, and there was no accountability for those involved. No one should ever have to go through that again.”
In 2016, the U.S. Department of Justice opened an investigation into the OCDA and OCSD’s informant practices from 2007 to 2016. The DOJ published its investigative findings and recommendations for reforms to both the OCDA and OCSD in 2022 and separately settled with OCDA and OCSD in January 2025. The 2025 agreements respectively state that the sustainment of reforms by OCDA and OCSD are necessary to ensure that the use of custodial informants is constitutional.
“In the end, neither agency made changes until after they got caught,” said Oswaldo Farias, a member of plaintiff P.E.O.P.L.E Coalition. “This forced reform is damage control, not meaningful accountability. As advocates, we will continue demanding the transparency and accountability necessary to ensure that OCDA’s and OCSD’s long awaited reforms uphold the rights of all community members.
Plaintiffs’ litigation ran parallel to the DOJ’s investigation and settlements and independently focused on current OCSD and OCDA informant policies and practices. The sustained pressure exerted by plaintiffs’ litigation consistently reinforced the need for criminal legal reform in Orange County, impacting the development of improvements to both agencies’ informant practices. In particular, plaintiffs worked collaboratively with the OCDA as it shaped its policies and practices to fulfill the U.S. DOJ’s reform recommendations.
“The OCDA and OCSD policy changes that occurred during this litigation are an important step in addressing the decades-long legacy of unconstitutional informant practices by both departments. But those past injustices can never be made right.” said Summer Lacey, senior staff attorney and director of criminal justice at the ACLU Foundation of Southern California. “The end of this litigation passes the torch from the courtroom back to Orange County stakeholders and elected officials charged with holding law enforcement accountable to the community it has sworn to represent and protect.”
“This litigation improved the Orange County criminal legal system, including through the substantive collaboration between the plaintiffs and OCDA,” said Jacob Kreilkamp, partner at Munger, Tolles, & Olson LLP. “Deceptive jailhouse informant schemes must be a thing of the past, not the future.”
The case was filed by the American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU Foundation of Southern California, and the law firm of Munger, Tolles & Olson LLP.
Read the OCSD settlement: https://www.aclusocal.org/sites/default/files/2025-03-24_-_p.e.o.p.l.e._...