4th District Court of Appeal (Santa Ana)
SANTA ANA — Two years and a job removed from one of the biggest decisions of his life, Justice Thomas M. Goethals recalls his shift in thinking more than anything. While he’d seen a lot in his nearly 40 years as a trial lawyer and judge, a secret network of government informants operating inside the jails seemed too outlandish to believe.
But in the years that followed that initial motion from the public defender assigne... (continued)