Death penalty possible for Costa Mesa double-murder defendant, judge rules

A defense lawyer’s accusations of decades of misconduct by prosecutors and sheriff’s deputies in Orange County were not enough to persuade a judge to ban the possibility of the death penalty for a Costa Mesa man accused of murdering two college students in 2010.

Superior Court Judge John Conley ruled Friday that capital punishment will remain on the table for Daniel Patrick Wozniak, a 31-year-old aspiring community theater actor. He is accused of shooting his neighbor to death, dismembering the body and then luring the neighbor’s friend into his apartment before killing her and staging her body to appear as if she had been sexually assaulted.

The ruling means that more than five years after the slayings, Wozniak’s trial is imminent.

The decision also is a setback for public defender Scott Sanders, who has tried to use Wozniak’s case to uncover what he claims is a pattern of misconduct by the Orange County district attorney’s office. Conley denied Sanders’ request for further hearings on the death penalty issue, at which Sanders had hoped to call District Attorney Tony Rackauckas and Sheriff Sandra Hutchens as witnesses.

Sanders has filed thousands of pages of legal briefs outlining dozens of cases in which he alleges prosecutors illegally targeted defendants using jailhouse informants or failed to disclose helpful evidence to defense attorneys. The accusations span 40 cases in the past 30 years.

Specifically regarding Wozniak, Sanders claims that sheriff’s deputies placed an informant in the same jail module as Wozniak in hopes of obtaining incriminating statements, which would amount to a violation of Wozniak’s Sixth Amendment right to legal counsel.

Sanders also accused deputies of improperly suggesting a producer for the MSNBC show “Lockup” to interview Wozniak.

“[Prosecutors] got a window into his mind [they] shouldn’t have gotten,” Sanders argued.

The district attorney’s office has vehemently pushed back against Sanders.

In an all-day hearing Thursday, prosecutor Matt Murphy accused Sanders of making accusations and seeking publicity before gathering supporting evidence.

“Mr. Sanders makes a claim, he puts it in writing and he gives it to the press,” Murphy said.

For instance, Murphy argued, the informant who spoke to Wozniak did so on his own accord and the MSNBC producer denied she was directed by sheriff’s deputies.

Sanders has argued that no homicide suspect in Orange County is able to receive a fair trial because prosecutors cannot be trusted to turn over information about jailhouse informants that could help defendants.

In the case of admitted Seal Beach mass killer Scott Dekraai, Sanders used similar allegations to persuade a judge to remove the district attorney’s office from the case.

After months of hearings in the Dekraai matter, Judge Thomas Goethals ruled that sheriff’s deputies either lied under oath or willfully withheld evidence from the court when they testified about informants.

The state attorney general’s office is now prosecuting Dekraai and appealing Goethals’ ruling.

But in the Wozniak case, Conley rebuffed Sanders in his written ruling, saying he had failed to show how the accusations would affect the fairness of the trial.

Prosecutors have agreed not to use any information they gathered from the informant who spoke with Wozniak, and Wozniak willingly signed a waiver to participate in the MSNBC show, Conley pointed out.

“There may have been a Sixth Amendment violation in [the informant] talking to Wozniak – or there may not have been – but that question has become moot,” Conley wrote. “The statements will never be used in Mr. Wozniak’s trial.”

Except for cases handled by a certain prosecutor in which the district attorney’s office has already admitted mistakes, Conley said he could not judge whether prosecutors had indeed committed the misconduct that Sanders alleged.

“The court simply finds that whether good or bad, that conduct in 40 other cases is irrelevant to Mr. Wozniak’s right to a fair trial,” Conley wrote. “This case cannot be used as a vehicle to right any wrongs there might have been in the past or to express disapproval of them.”

Family members of the slaying victims, 26-year-old Army veteran Sam Herr and his tutor, 23-year-old Juri “Julie” Kibuishi, expressed relief at Conley’s ruling.

“I’m optimistic we’ll have a trial next month,” said Herr’s father, Steve, who called the decision “long overdue.”

Sam Herr’s mother, Raquel, said the years of delays have been a cloud over the proceedings, forcing her in court date after court date to face the man accused of killing her son.

“It’s like renewing the pain,” she said.