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Judge Opens Secret D.A. Records to Scrutiny
August 5, 2005, Article, Los Angeles Times, Henry Weinstein
A Los Angeles federal judge has opened the door for defense attorneys to conduct a potentially significant investigation of secret records on the district attorney's unethical use of jailhouse informants in the 1970s and '80s, legal experts said. U.S. District Judge A. Howard Matz ruled that attorneys for Thomas L. Goldstein could investigate charges of widespread corruption in the district attorney's use of such informants. Goldstein who spent 24 years wrongfully imprisoned on murder charges, partly on the word of a jailhouse informant filed a civil rights lawsuit against Los Angeles County and Long Beach after he was freed last year.
Matz emphasized in his ruling that Goldstein's case "does not focus on a violation limited to one actual prosecution." "Plaintiff claims that decades-long operations of the largest prosecutor's office in the United States violated constitutional rights of many individuals," Matz wrote. "The practices consisted of failing to provide required ethical supervision and discipline; creating barriers to the dissemination of information within its ranks; assigning personnel in a manner that perpetuated these violations; and ignoring findings of an investigative body."
Long Beach police officers arrested Goldstein in November 1979 on suspicion of the shotgun slaying of John McGinest. Goldstein was prosecuted by Deputy Dist. Atty. Timothy Browne, who has since retired. Goldstein's conviction was based largely on the testimony of an eyewitness who later recanted and of a jailhouse informant who a judge later said "fits the profile of the dishonest jailhouse informant." A Marine veteran who served in Vietnam, Goldstein, now 56, maintained from the start that he was innocent. He was released 16 months ago after five federal judges ruled that his constitutional rights had been violated. A state court judge dismissed the charges against him "in furtherance of justice." That judge cited a lack of evidence against Goldstein and the "cancerous nature" of the case.
Prosecutors sat mute in the courtroom during Goldstein's trial when jailhouse informant Edward F. Fink lied in testifying that he was getting nothing in return for his testimony, court records show. In reality, Fink received significant benefits for his testimony, a point emphasized by federal judges who overturned Goldstein's conviction. Prosecutors dropped one case against Fink and reduced charges in another. Fink, who had three felony convictions and a heroin habit, was arrested at least 35 times, including 14 times in Long Beach. He died in 1994.
Goldstein asserted in his civil rights suit that the district attorney had violated his constitutional rights by having a policy and practice of "using confessions obtained by jailhouse informants which were false and fabricated." The suit also contended that the district attorney's office had a policy of "failing to disseminate" information within the office "about the benefits jailhouse informants receive in exchange for assistance in securing convictions."
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