It’s About Time

The appointment of Douglas Dalton as special counsel to the grand jury investigating the alleged misuse of jailhouse informants by the district attorney’s office is a welcome step toward cleansing the stain of suspicion that has for too long marred Los Angeles County’s criminal justice system.

Dalton, 60, an experienced and respected lawyer, is a former member of the California State Bar’s board of governors. Penetrating the miasma of distasteful allegations arising from the informants’ swamp will require all the independence and credibility his credentials suggest.

Fewer scandals in recent memory have raised such disturbing questions about a system whose fundamental integrity must be above question; fewer scandals still have quite so many influential individuals and institutions with an interest in seeing them disposed of as quietly and conveniently as possible. Involved are allegations that deputy district attorneys allowed perjured testimony to be presented, that three successive district attorneys countenanced or negligently ignored this practice and that members of the Sheriff’s Department connived to create opportunities for informants to concoct their deceits.

As Times legal affairs writer Ted Rohrlich reports today, the informant whose demonstrated ability to fabricate confessions by other jail inmates first drew attention to the problem now admits that he perjured himself in 12 of 14 cases in which he testified. Previously, The Times reported that other so-called snitches who were known to be liars had been granted favors by the district attorney in return for what turned out to be false testimony against other defendants. One of these informants returned to the streets and committed a series of brutal rapes.

A disturbing circumstance of Dalton’s appointment is the county’s imposition of a $250,000 ceiling on the amount he can bill for conducting an investigation whose end is not even in sight. Given the large fees the Board of Supervisors routinely pays for private lawyers to defend the county in civil cases, the limit on billing in this matter looks like parsimony rather than prudence.