Scathing report faults Orange County DA Office for 'failure of leadership'

The crisis in Orange County's criminal justice system took a dramatic new turn Monday as District Attorney Tony Rackauckas called on the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate his own office.

"I am respectfully requesting and welcoming your office to conduct any review you deem appropriate in regard to the OCDA Informant Policies and Practices," wrote Rackauckas in the letter to U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch.

The announcement came hours after the release of a scathing report by a committee Rackauckas convened in July to examine the mounting controversy tied to the alleged misuse of jailhouse informants.

The report compares the Orange County District Attorney's Office to a "ship without a rudder," and said some of its prosecutors have adopted a "win at all costs mentality."

MORE: Jailhouse informant scandal rocking criminal justice system in Orange County

"In short, the office suffers from what is best described as a failure of leadership," reads the report by the Informant Policies and Practices Evaluation Committee.

Critics say the OCDA and local law enforcement have engaged in a decades-long conspiracy to elicit illegal jailhouse confessions and hide evidence. Rackauckas has acknowledged mistakes were made, but insists there has been no criminal wrongdoing.

"There's no criminal conspiracy in this office," Rackauckas told reporters Monday afternoon, while surrounded by members of his staff. "No false confessions, no innocent people convicted."

But the controversy surrounding the use of informants has unraveled multiple felony cases and set at least one admitted killer free. Another convicted killer, Eric Ortiz, was granted a new trial in November after four Orange County Sheriff's "Special Handling" Deputies pleaded the fifth on the witness stand when they were called to testify about the jail's use of informants.

MORE: Did Orange County law enforcement break law by using jailhouse informants?

The five-attorney committee, referred to as IPPEC, noted "numerous deficiencies in both the supervision and training at the OCDA which contributed to the jailhouse informant issues."

Members of the committee were mostly hand-selected by Tony Rackauckas and include Jim Smith, a retired Orange County Superior Court judge; Patrick Dixon, a retired Los Angeles County assistant district attorney; Robert Gerard, former Orange County Bar Association president and Blithe Leece, an attorney who specializes in legal ethics. Loyola Law School professor and ethics expert Laurie Levenson served as an adviser.

In their report, committee members joined a chorus of legal voices calling for an independent agency, such as the U.S. Department of Justice or an Orange County Grand Jury, to investigate the jailhouse informant controversy.

IPPEC notes that while its members conducted dozens of interviews and reviewed thousands of pages of legal briefs, its members did not have subpoena power, could not compel interviews and individuals were not questioned under oath.

Miriam Krinsky is among the more than thirty former prosecutors, retired judges, law school professors and other legal heavyweights who signed a