ORANGE COUNTY, Calif. — A high-ranking prosecutor and judicial candidate was fired after allegedly withholding evidence and violating the constitutional rights of a defendant in a decade-old murder trial.
Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer announced the firing of Ebrahim Baytieh, senior assistant district attorney, on Wednesday after discovering he was involved in a national scandal involving the use of jailhouse informants to solicit confessions and then mislead defense attorneys. This program involved dozens of cases and prompted federal review by the U.S. Justice Department.
“I made it unequivocally clear when I ran for Orange County District Attorney that I would not tolerate the ‘win at all costs’ mentality of the prior administration,” Spitzer said in a statement. “My prosecutors will not violate the Constitution and the rights of defendants in order to get convictions.”
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Baytieh did not respond to an email seeking comment, and his campaign website is still active. It lists dozens of endorsements from judges, including four who are current or retired appellate court justices.
The case in question involves defendant Paul Gentile Smith, who in 2010 was convicted in the stabbing death of a longtime friend whose body was then set on fire. Part of the evidence Baytieh used was gleaned from three informants placed in Smith’s jail cell. The defense was only told about one of them, the Orange County Register reported.
The evidence was stored in a tape recording that surfaced after 2014, when the Orange County Public Defender’s Office learned about the informant program violating defendants’ rights to a fair trial by coaxing confessions, the Register reported.
Among other things, defendants are legally entitled to attorney representation before talking to law enforcement. The informants were acting as an arm of the police, judges have ruled in the matter.
Last year, the DA’s office agreed with defense attorneys that Smith should receive a new trial.
“I immediately hired an independent law firm to investigate whether there was a failure by the prosecutor to properly turn over discovery and whether the prosecutor was truthful in all subsequent and related inquiries by the United States Department of Justice,” Spitzer said. “[On Wednesday,] that independent investigation was completed. As a result of those findings, the prosecutor is no longer employed by the Orange County District Attorney’s Office.”
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Baytieh’s website states that he has prosecuted defendants in 128 trials, including public corruption, police conduct, hate crimes, election fraud, and arson. He has conducted grand jury investigations and was honored as Outstanding Prosecutor of the Year by the state of California.
