State to appeal ruling bouncing D.A. from Seal Beach murder case

The state attorney general’s office will appeal a judge’s decision to remove Orange County prosecutors from their highest profile murder case, which the judge said had become a “comedy of errors” in the hands of the district attorney’s office.

State prosecutors made the announcement Friday in front of Orange County Superior Court Judge Thomas Goethals, who last week booted the district attorney’s office off the case after ruling the office had violated Scott Dekraai’s rights by improperly withholding evidence from the defense.

The appeal threatens another delay in the proceedings against Dekraai, who pleaded guilty to eight counts of murder in a shooting rampage at a Seal Beach beauty salon 3½ years ago and now faces a potential death sentence. An appeal could take a year or longer.

The attorney general’s office stood to inherit the case had Orange County prosecutors stepped aside.

Family members of the victims of Dekraai’s October 2011 massacre reacted in frustration to the news.

When the judge invited family members to address the court, Paul Wilson, whose wife was killed in the shooting, directed some of his anger at Dist. Atty. Tony Rackauckas, who was sitting a few feet away.

Wilson recalled meeting Rackauckas soon after the shooting. “He looked at me with a tear in his eye and he told me he had my back,” Wilson said.

“I blame him,” he added. “We shouldn’t be here.”

In issuing his stinging rebuke last week, Goethlals said that “certain aspects of the district attorney’s performance in this case might be described as a comedy of errors but for the fact that it has been so sadly deficient.”

Goethals, though, declined to remove the death penalty as a potential punishment for Dekraai.

The legal wrangling involved how Dekraai came to occupy a jail cell next to a prolific jailhouse informant. Prosecutors and jailers said it was a coincidence, but Dekraai’s attorney insisted it was part of a widespread operation to elicit incriminating remarks from defendants who were represented by lawyers, a violation of their rights.