Case Name: In re JONES et al., Board of Sup'rs; In re MEEHAN, Clerk of Board of Sup'rs
Court: New York Supreme Court, Appellate Division
Jurisdiction: New York
Decision Date: 1905-01-27
Citations: 92 N.Y.S. 275
Docket Number: 
Parties: In re JONES et al., Board of Sup’rs. In re MEEHAN, Clerk of Board of Sup’rs.
Judges: 
Reporter: West's New York Supplement
Volume: 92
Pages: 275–281

Head Matter:
(101 App. Div. 55.)
In re JONES et al., Board of Sup’rs. In re MEEHAN, Clerk of Board of Sup’rs.
(Supreme Court, Appellate Division, Second Department.
January 27, 1905.)
Grand Jury—Powers—Presentment.
Code Crim. Proc. § 260, provides that the grand jury must inquire (1) into the case of every person imprisoned in the jail on a criminal charge, and not indicted; (2) into the condition and management of the public prisons in the county; and (3) into the willful and corrupt misconduct in office of public officers. Section 261 gives them free access to public prisons and the examination of public records. While there is no specific provision for a report as the result pf an inquiry, section 250, in referring to the preservation of the minutes of the proceedings of the grand jury, uses the term “presentment” in contradistinction to “indictment.” Held, that the grand jury may, in the exercise of its inquisitorial powers, make a presentment in the nature of a report, although an indictment cannot or does not follow it, and such report need not be stricken out because it incidentally designates some public official as responsible for omissions or commissions.
[Ed. Note.—For cases in point, see vol. 24, Cent. Dig. Grand Jury, $ 88.] Woodward, J., dissenting.
Appeal from Special Term, Nassau 'County.
In the matter of the application of William H. Jones and others, composing the board of supervisors of the county of Nassau, to set aside and quash a presentment made by the grand jury in a proceeding entitled “The matter of the Investigation as to the Records and Minutes of the Clerk of the Board of Supervisors of Nassau County,” and in the matter of the application of Edward J. Meehan, clerk of the board of supervisors of the county of Nassau. From an order denying a motion to set aside and quash the presentment, the applicants appeal. Affirmed.
Argued before HIRSCHBERG, P. J., and BARTLETT, WOODWARD, JENKS, and HOOKER, JJ.
Halstead Scudder, for appellants.
James P. Niemann, for respondents.

Opinion:
JENKS, J.
If we regard the term "presentment" in its stricter meaning as an accusation of the grand jury sua sponte, or, as Judge Story puts it, "an accusation made ex mero motu," as distinguished from an indictment which was a written accusation preferred to the grand jury and presented upon oath at the instance of the government, then I agree that it is not a final accusation—the alternative, so to speak, of an indictment; for a presentment was regarded as the basis of an indictment. The distinction does not now often practically appear, inasmuch as the grand jury is rarely the origin of accusation, as was itsjmototype under the Assize of Clarendon (Thayer's Preliminary Treatise on Evidence in Common Law; Green's Short History of the. English People, 111; Ency. Brit. "Jury," quoting Stubbs; Bl. Comm. c. 21), though power to act ex mero motu is preserved in section 259 of our Criminal Code of Procedure. But our Code of Criminal Procedure vests the grand jury with certain inquisitorial or visitorial powers. Section 260 provides as follows:
"The grand jury must inquire (1) into the case of every person imprisoned in the jail of the county, on a criminal charge, and not indicted; (2) into the condition and -management of the public prisons in the county; and (3) into the willful and corrupt misconduct in office, of public officers of every description, in the county."
Section 261 provides as follows:
"They are also entitled to free access, at all reasonable times, to the public prisons, and to the examination, without charge, of all public records in the county."
' We may assume that these powers are conferred for some purpose. Official inquiry intends either official action or official report. As such powers are limited to inquiry, and the grand jury has no executive or administrative authority in the premises, the result of any inquiry must be report or statement which shall call attention to the wrong. The grand jury can but report to the court to which it was returned, and by which it is discharged. Such reports are commonly termed "presentments." The Standard Dictionary gives this as a definition of presentment:
"4. Law. (1) A report made by a grand jury, on their own motion, either on .their own knowledge or on evidence before them, concerning some wrongdoing, and presented to the court, usually as a basis for an indictment. (2) The finding and setting forth of charges in an indictment by a grand jury; an indictment."
Bishop on Criminal Procedure, § 137 (2), says:
"Sometimes our grand juries make a sort of general presentment of evils and evil things to call public attention to them, yet not as instructions for any specific indictment. No one could be called upon to answer to such a presentment."
Hochheimer on the Law of Crime and Criminal Proceedings says :
"Presentment in a large sense of the term includes every proceeding of a grand jury. 2 Inst. 739."
I think, therefore, that any final finding upon the exercise of these inquisitorial powers may be called a presentment, and that it may be regarded as final, and not improper, because an indictment cannot or does not follow it. While it is true that the Code of Criminal Procedure does not in terms provide for a report as the result of this inquiry nor directly provide for a presentment, yet it is significant that the term is used in contradistinction to an indictment in section 250, which reads as follows:
"The grand jury must appoint one of their number as clerk, who Is to preserve minutes of their proceedings (except of the votes of the individual members on a presentment or indictment), and of the evidence given before them."
Such inquiry as is required by sections 260 and 261 may reveal misconduct, inattention, or shortcomings of public officials, and the report or presentment might be colorless or ineffective unless it specified individual delinquencies. I think that in such a case the grand jury can properly point out those individuals who, as officials, are deemed responsible, and that the presentment may stand though it be not followed by an indictment. It may be pertinent to call attention to the fact that inefficiency, carelessness, or neglect may require correction, and yet not justify indictment, and to the fact that not all willful or corrupt misconduct in office can be presented in the first instance by indictment; e. g., unlawfully disclosing the finding of an indictment, unlawfully bringing to or carrying letters from any county jail, penitentiary- or state prison, or selling liquors in a courthouse or jail contrary to law. See section 56 Code of Criminal Procedure, and subdivisions 13, 14, and 30 thereof. It is true that accusation without opportunity to answer in the forum is a bitter hardship, if not intolerable (see opinion of Lord Mansfield in Rex v. Roup ell, Cowp. 458) ; but, while a report or presentment of a grand jury neither calls upon a person nor suffers him to answer, it may be that the court in its inherent power might, on the application of one aggrieved, refer or resubmit the matter to the further inquiry of the grand jury, or of a grand jury, in order that justice be done after a full hearing. I think that if under the guise of a presentment, the grand jury simply accuse, thereby compelling the accused to stand mute, where the presentment would warrant indictment so that the accused might answer, the presentment may be expunged; but I do not think that a presentment as a report upon the exercise of inquisitorial powers must be stricken out if it incidentally point out that this or that public official is responsible for omissions or commissions, negligence or defects.
As the position of the appellants is that this presentment is illegal and without authority in law, regardless of the merits—which, indeed, are not presented—I feel constrained to affirm the order which deals only with a presentment made in the exercise of inquisitorial powers.
HIRSCHBERG, P. X, and HOOKER, X, concur. BARTLETT, X, votes to dismiss appeal on the ground of want of jurisdiction to entertain it.