The Waterbury Democrat., 1938-03-08

criminal law in case where the regularly constituted prosecuting officials, because of lack of author ity to compei witnesses to give statements or for some other reason have been unable to function.
 To Save The Innocent
 The first of these purposes, that is to prevent the placing on trial of innocent persons is the one which is predominant with the ordinary grand jury which we have in this state. That is because we ordinarily call grand jury only to pass upon the question as to whether some one shall be tried on a charge of murder in either the first or second degree and because we have both a constitutional and statutory provis- ion to the effect that no one shall be placed upon trial for any crime the punishment for which may be death or Imprisonment for life un- less an indictment shall have been found against him for such crime. by a grand jury. Obviously the reason for this provision in our constitution is the belief that no citizen should be placed in situa- ton where his life or his liberty for life is put in hazard except after a careful investigation by body of men who are above the suspicion of being controlled by improper mo- tives. In the ordinary case in which a grand jury is called in, the States Attorney has the case for the pro- secution all prepared. He sends in the witnesses who testify before the grand jury and then the grand jury decides whether there is enough of a case against the accused so that the state should be put to the eX- pense and the accused should be put to the hazard of trial in court. In such cases in performing it's duty under the constitution the grand jury acts more as restraint to unjustified prosecutions than as an aid to the prosecutor in bringing guilty persons to trial.
 Not An Ordinary Jury
 You, however, are not the ordi- nary grand jury. do lot know just what alleged criminal offenses will come to your attention but appre- hend that none of them will be charges of murder. You are, there fore, not such grand jury as the constitution requires for the prOtec- tion of our citizens against unjusti- fable prosecution. You are rather body of men brought together for the purpose of making an investi- gation to see whether any crime or crimes have been committed in this county and If you find that such crimes have been committed to un- earth the evidence of those crimes and present the criminals for trial. You, of course, should always bear in mind that it is your duty to pro- tect innocent people and therefore yCu should not make presentment against anyone unless you believe that on such evidence as you have there is reasonable ground to sus- pect that he is guilty of crime. But at the same time you should also bear in mind that probably the principal part of your function is to make diligent inquiry as to whether there is probable ground to believe that any person or persons have committed crime and to make sure so far as you can that such persons if there are any are brought to jus tice.
 Ignorant of Coming News
 As said a moment ago am en- tirely ignorant of what will come to your attention or what will be dug up in your investigation. It is, therefore, impossible at this time for me to tell you what conduct does or does not constitute crime either under our statutes or at common law. If, however, as your investigation goes on, questions arise in your minds as to whether or not certain specific conduct is viola ton of our criminal law you may feel perfectly free to send for me and I will do my best to advise you on the subject. The most that can do now is to advise you in rather general way as to what procedure you should follow in conducting your investigation.
 Procedure Not Same
 In the first place let me say that your procedure will not necessarily be the same as that of the ordinary grand jury, that is the sort of a grand jury which is required under the constitution in murder cases. There is a set of rules applicable to the procedure of grand juries drawn up by the judges of this court well over hundred years ago. Those rules, however, are directory rather than mandatory and in par ticular they were framed for the guidance of the sort of grand jury which is required by the constitu- tion. They were framed primarily for the purpose of effectuating the principle set fEr.h in the constitu- ton that the main purpose of a grand jury is to protect citizens from unWarranted prosecutions for such a serious crime as murder. When a grand jury is called to deal
 with lesser crimes, when action by a grand jury is not required either by the constitution or by statute as a necessary preliminary to a prose cution, when in other words the principal function of the grand jury is as it is in this case to ferret out crime and bring criminals to prosec- cution, there are some of those rules of procedure which seem to be in applicable. For instance one of these rules provides that the attorney for the state shall not be present in the grand jury room.
 Now the reason for that rule ob- viously is that the judges were afraid that if the states attorney were present he might unduly influ- ence the grand jury to bring in an indictment against man who should not be indicted. Where the chief function of a grand jury is to prevent the innocent from being put to trial there is, of course, reason for excluding the states attorney. But, on the other hand, where neither the constitution nor the law requires a grand jury for the pro-