An Orange County Superior Court judge has removed the district attorney’s office from handling the case against a man who killed eight people at a Seal Beach hair salon in 2011 but said the assailant will still face the death penalty.
The ruling follows accusations that the government mishandled the case against Scott Dekraai, who last year pleaded guilty to gunning down his wife and seven others in Orange County’s deadliest shooting.
Superior Court Judge Thomas Goethals was sharply critical of the district attorney’s handling of the case, saying the killer’s due-process rights had been violated by the prosecution’s “chronic failure” to turn over evidence.
Goethals described the case as “a comedy of errors but for the fact that it has been so sadly deficient.”
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