Opinion ID: 1669209
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Subversion of Independence of Grand Jury

Text: The panel found four instances where the county attorney subverted the independence of the grand jury: 1. The county attorney said that his office would send squad cars to seek out absent jurors. The panel found: The county attorney is not by law the overseer of the grand jury. He has no authority, by statute or rule, to seek out missing jurors. The importance of grand jurors' regular attendance certainly can be conveyed to them without the veiled threat in these remarks. Although we accept the county attorney's assurance that he intended to be humorous, the comment improperly elevates the county attorney's rank in the grand jury proceedings over the rank of the jurors themselves, by suggesting a supervisory power that does not reside with the county attorney. It is a misstatement of law, and it is error. Memorandum at 6-7 2. The county attorney told the grand jury that they should consider the county's higher office standard of probable cause in deciding whether to indict. The panel found error: [I]t is improper for the county attorney to refer the grand jury to his office standard, which, whatever it might be, specifically should not affect grand jury decisions. It is of the essence that the grand jury stand between the citizen and the State, that it act independently, and that it not defer to the prosecutor or to any other person or institution that might seek to influence its work. Id. at 7. 3. The county attorney explained what happens when a first-degree murder charge is not proven at trial. The panel disapproved of this discourse: [Because] the grand jury is invited to see itself as part of the prosecutorial function, this time by working with the county attorney so as to avoid a situation where, due to a hypothetical trial judge's failure to instruct on a lesser charge, a person guilty of a lesser charge goes free. This excursion into trial strategy is not instruction as to the law which the grand jury should consider in its deliberations. It is error. Id. at 8. 4. The assistant county attorney referred to the standard of probable cause as a belief that we have a reasonable likelihood of conviction based upon the most logical defense. He asked that the grand jury not overwhelm him with charges and told them: We have other obligations and we wish you to come on out as reasonable people and peg it just as close to where it should be as possible. The panel found: The phrase reasonable likelihood of conviction based upon the most logical defense articulates a standard it is hard to believe anyone but a trial lawyer could apply: how can lay jurors sort out the most logical defense, and from what foundation are they to assess likelihood of conviction? The statement, as a whole, implies that the grand jurors are quasi-prosecutors and that they should be considerate of the county attorney's office. Neither proposition is legally correct. This comment is error. Id. at 9. Overall, the panel was troubled by the tone of the prosecutors' remarks above, but concluded that they were isolated comments, not forceful enough to undermine the institutional independence of the grand jury. It held that the errors were harmless as a matter of law.