In the Orange County Register on 11-4-07, there is an opinion piece by Michael Schroeder, Republican political figure and advisor to indicted sheriff Mike Carona. In this amazing column, Schroeder makes the case that Carona should not resign because of his indictment. Schroeder's main argument is that the two chief witnesses against Carona, former Assistant Sheriffs, George Jaramillo and Don Haidl are now convicted felons, people of low character, who are trying to lesson their own punishment by turning on Carona. Fair enough, but there is one important point that Mr Schroeder left out of his column.
These odious characters (Jaramillo and Haidl) are the very people that Carona chose to associate with. Carona plucked both of these guys out of nowhere to make them his Assistant Chiefs-in the case of Haidl, a man with no law enforcement experience whatsoever.
As a retired DEA agent, I participated in countless trials where we used the testimony of cooperating defendants, unindicted co-conspirators and other assorted criminals to testify against the people we were prosecuting. It is a necessary evil in law enforcement since you are not going to find upstanding citizens who are in the position of testifying about the inner workings of a criminal conspiracy. Whatever consideration those witnesses got in exchange for their testimony, as well as their entire criminal history was revealed to the jury for their consideration in evaluating the testimony.
The fact is that no jury is going to believe the uncorroborated testimony of a known criminal-nor should they. Jurors will be so instructed by the judge before they go into deliberations. What is crucial is that whatever such witnesses say under oath must be corroborated by independent evidence. That is the responsibility of the prosecutor and the investigating police. That will be their responsibility in the Carona trial.
What defense attorneys have to overcome when they savage the witness (as they will) is that these are lowlifes that the defendant chose to associate with. If Jaramillo and Haidl are such untrustworthy people, as claims Mr Schroeder, what was Mike Carona doing with them in the first place? Was it because Carona was taken in by these guys and was unable to see their true nature? C'mon! Carona has 32 years of police experience. With that kind of experience, you can spot a dishonest person a mile away. These are points that Mr Schroeder neglected to point out.
Carona, of course, is presumed innocent until proven guilty of the charges. Legally, he cannot be fired at this point because he is elected. However, if this guy had one shred of class or cared anything about the department he has hurt so much, he would resign. His deputies deserve better. I can only imagine what morale is like now in the OCSD, especially in light of the allegation surrounding the widow of one of his own deceased deputies.
As a retired law enforcement officer, I find this whole thing sickening. The real victims are the OCSD deputies and the public.
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