WASHINGTON, Oct 13 (Reuters) - The U.S. Justice Department on Thursday released a scathing new report which found that prosecutors and sheriffs in Orange County, California had improperly used a jail house informant program in ways that routinely violated the constitutional rights of criminal defendants.
The 63-page report caps a nearly six-year civil rights investigation, known as a "pattern or practice" probe, by the Civil Rights Division into the Orange County District Attorney's Office and the Orange County Sheriff's Department.
Although the investigation focused on prior misconduct, the report said that to this day, Orange County has still not corrected all of the problems.
"Restoring trust in Orange County law enforcement will require recognition and remediation of the harms caused by the law enforcement practices described in this report," the report says.
It adds that although Orange County has taken some steps to better handle its informant program and provide better disclosures to defendants, "more work remains to be done."