Kaus Loses Post as Grand Jury’s Counsel : Informants: Inquiry into use of jailhouse ‘snitches’ is placed in limbo. Panel will continue its work, but wants another lawyer.

The Los Angeles County grand jury Tuesday fired retired California Supreme Court Justice Otto M. Kaus, the special counsel directing its inquiry into the jailhouse informant scandal, leaving the probe’s future in limbo.

In a terse two-paragraph news release, jury forewoman Ann Cooper announced that the 1989-90 grand jury had completed the first stage of its investigation and that the county’s $250,000 contract with Kaus had expired.

“The grand jury plans to proceed with the investigation, has been in contact with the (California) attorney general’s office and will request that new counsel be named,” the release stated.

Kaus, reached at his home Tuesday night, asked that the jury’s release be read to him and said he had “no comment at all.” The former justice declined to say whether the action came as a surprise, whether it resulted from a disagreement over his fees, or whether any part of the inquiry had indeed been completed.

Kaus said earlier this month that he was preparing a “preliminary report” on his findings.

Sources said that so far, Kaus has presented the grand jury only with evidence concerning previously publicized favors done for informant Leslie Vernon White by the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office. But he was said to be gathering information on 47 other jailhouse informants and auditing four county law enforcement funds used to pay them.

Senior Assistant Atty. Gen. Edward T. Fogel Jr. also declined comment late Tuesday, saying only that “we will be cooperating with the grand jury” in its efforts to continue the probe. Kaus, who is now in private law practice as a senior partner in the Los Angeles firm of Hufstedler, Miller, Kaus and Beardsley, was named special counsel after Atty. Gen. John K. Van de Kamp received repeated requests over several months from the 1988-89 county grand jury for an independent lawyer to help it investigate the misuse of jailhouse informants by law enforcement officials.

The scandal broke last year when longtime informant White demonstrated for local authorities how easily an informant could convincingly fake the confession of a murder suspect he had never met.

The demonstration called into question the district attorney’s use of jailhouse “snitches,” who have testified in about 200 cases, mostly involving murders, in the last decade.

Calling the investigation “one of the most significant investigations that any grand jury could ever do,” Kaus last month said he had already incurred expenses of about $250,000 after five months of work and would soon seek another $250,000 to complete the probe, sparking friction within the panel.

Kaus charged $350 per hour for his time and used other attorneys in his firm who billed at rates ranging from $75 to $285 per hour. Three private investigators he used charged $20 an hour, sources said.

The current grand jury--which inherited the informant matter--appears less enthusiastic than last year’s panel. Some expressed concern over the mounting expenses, and others raised questions about a potential conflict of interest upon learning that the lawyer who is Kaus’ chief assistant is married to a deputy district attorney.

The assistant, Warren Ettinger, has also represented two other deputy district attorneys--both of whom had used jailhouse informants--when they were accused of unrelated crimes.

Kaus has said that he disclosed Ettinger’s potential conflicts of interest to the first grand jury and to at least the foreman of the second panel, who abruptly resigned for “personal reasons” last month while Kaus was vacationing in Europe.

Judge Richard P. Byrne, presiding judge of the Los Angeles Superior Court, said Monday that he had met with the leader of the grand jury who indicated that “they wish to proceed with the investigation.”

However, county Counsel Dewitt W. Clinton has said he will argue that any additional funds for the special counsel will have to come from the existing grand jury budget, or be specially appropriated by county supervisors.