Feds: California’s Orange County misused jail snitches

SANTA ANA, Calif. (AP) — The U.S. Justice Department says a California sheriff’s department and prosecutors ran an extensive jailhouse informant program for years that violated the rights of criminal defendants. The federal agency issued a report Thursday about an investigation it began in 2016 into Orange County authorities’ use of jailhouse informants. The report says that the county from 2007 to 2016 improperly used informants to violate inmates’ constitutional rights and that prosecutors failed to turn over critical evidence to defense attorneys, as required. The agency calls for an independent review of the cases involving the use of the informants. The Sheriff’s Department says it’s made changes over the past six years to protect the rights of inmates.