Opinion ID: 1354899
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: grand jury indictments and report.

Text: The grand jury is an independent agency of constitutional origin. Hoskins v. Maricle, 150 S.W.3d 1, 18 (Ky.2004). Despite JUSTICE GRAVES's assertions to the contrary in his opinion, the grand jury is not controlled by either the prosecutor or the convening court. Id. at 17-18. It is an investigative body acting independently of either prosecuting attorney or judge. United States v. Dionisio, 410 U.S. 1, 16, 93 S.Ct. 764, 773, 35 L.Ed.2d 67 (1973). It acquired an independence in England free from control by the Crown or judges. Costello v. United States, 350 U.S. 359, 362, 76 S.Ct. 406, 408, 100 L.Ed. 397 (1956). The grand jury's functional independence from the Judicial Branch is evidenced both in the scope of its power to investigate criminal wrongdoing and in the manner in which that power is exercised. United States v. Williams, 504 U.S. 36, 48, 112 S.Ct. 1735, 1742, 118 L.Ed.2d 352 (1992). Thus, [t]he hallmark of the grand jury is its independence from outside influence. Democratic Party of Ky. v. Graham, 976 S.W.2d 423, 426 (Ky.1998). JUSTICE GRAVES's broadside attack on our grand jury system in his separate opinion is both unfounded and ill-conceived. A grand jury not only returns indictments when it has probable cause to believe that a person has committed a criminal offense, it also exonerates without formal charge persons wrongly accused of criminal offenses. Wood v. Georgia, 370 U.S. 375, 390, 82 S.Ct. 1364, 1373, 8 L.Ed.2d 569 (1962). At an open-court hearing in the Franklin Circuit Court on October 27, 2005, the foreperson of the grand jury attempted to express the grand jury's frustration at the criticism being directed its way by the Governor's spokespersons and attorneys. Judge Graham wisely terminated the discussion; but the grand jurors do not need to hear the ham sandwich claim from a Member of this Court. [43] I would also note that Governor Fletcher has never claimed that he issued his blanket pardon because the persons indicted or being investigated were innocent. As noted, supra, the very issuance of the pardon is a recognition of guilt. He apparently believed that the perpetrators should not be punished for their guilt by, e.g., loss of employment similar to the losses they perpetrated against their victims. JUSTICE JOHNSTONE's opinion asserts without any citation to authority that [i]t is axiomatic that grand jury investigations and indictments are stages in the criminal prosecution of the offense itself. Ante, at 363. Not so. Criminal proceedings are initiated by way of formal charge, preliminary hearing, indictment, information or arraignment. Kirby v. Illinois, 406 U.S. 682, 689, 92 S.Ct. 1877, 1882, 32 L.Ed.2d 411 (1972) (emphasis added). The initiation of judicial criminal proceedings is far from a mere formalism. It is the starting point of our whole system of adversary criminal justice. For it is only then that the government has committed itself to prosecute, and only then that the adverse positions of government and defendant have solidified. It is then that a defendant finds himself faced with the prosecutorial forces of organized society, and immersed in the intricacies of substantive and procedural criminal law. It is this point, therefore, that marks the commencement of the criminal prosecutions  to which alone the explicit guarantees of the Sixth Amendment are applicable. Id. at 689-90, 92 S.Ct. at 1882 (emphasis added). There is every reason to believe that our constitutional grand jury was intended to operate substantially like its English progenitor. The basic purpose of the English grand jury was to provide a fair method for instituting criminal proceedings .... Democratic Party, 976 S.W.2d at 426 (emphasis added) (quoting Costello, 350 U.S. at 362, 76 S.Ct. at 408, and Rice v. Commonwealth, 288 S.W.2d 635, 638 (Ky. 1956)). Thus, the grand jury does not conduct criminal proceedings; it initiates criminal proceedings by the return of an indictment. `Indictment' is a technical word, peculiar to Anglo Saxon jurisprudence and implies the finding of a grand jury, as does also the word `presentment.' Rice, 288 S.W.2d at 637. It is an accusation made in behalf of the people ... formed by the concurrence of nine or more grand jurors (Const. § 248) in proper session and is completed by a return or delivery to the court. Nicholas v. Thomas, 382 S.W.2d 871, 872 (Ky.1964). Once an indictment is returned, criminal proceedings begin. It is at that point under Section 77 of the Constitution that a pardon may be granted and the legal proceedings interruptednot before. Therefore, JUSTICE JOHNSTONE's conclusion that a grand jury, especially this grand jury (because it is investigating alleged government corruption), must be instructed that it cannot return an indictment against a person purportedly pardoned by the governor is erroneous. JUSTICE JOHNSTONE's opinion contains another curious comment: Common sense and courtesy dictate that, where the subjects of a grand jury investigation have been pardoned and no criminal prosecution of the alleged offenses could ever result, the jurors should be so informed. Ante, at 364. In fact, the grand jurors were well aware of the existence of the attempted pardon. They were not sequestered and obviously were exposed to media reports. On October 27, 2005, the grand jury foreperson asked the presiding judge in open court whether the charge to the jury remained the same. Judge Graham responded: Your charge remains exactly the same. There is a debate going on in light of the Governor's general pardon that he has made pardoning everyone who has done anything to violate the merit system, except himself, up to a certain date. Lawyers in the case, lawyers representing the Governor and lawyers for the prosecution, have an important and substantial legal argument going on as to the effect of the general pardon, if any, on the power of the grand jury. This is a very important question that will be decided by the court later. If the court makes a determination that the general pardon has any effect upon your powers, I will take it upon myself to bring you back into court and so advise you. In the course of the debate yesterday, the court was asked to instruct the jury that they do not have the power to bring indictments against anyone who has been pardoned. At that time, I decided not to do that because I still have questions in my own mind whether that is a correct statement of the law. I will have to decide that question, and we have a hearing scheduled to decide that question. They are going to take ten days to brief it, then I'll decide the question. But I declined to tell you people to stop your proceedings until that time. I don't know how you feel about that. I will just say that it is a substantial question that has been raised about the effect of the general pardon. If you feel, in light of the fact that the question has been raised, you want to refrain from taking action until that question is resolved, that is up to you. I am not telling you to do so. Videotape of proceedings, Franklin Circuit Court, Oct. 27, 2005 (emphasis added). JUSTICE JOHNSTONE's opinion also seems to hold (erroneously, if so) that pardoned or unindicted persons cannot be identified in any report returned by the grand jury. [44] That misconception presumably is premised upon a misreading of Bowling v. Sinnette, 666 S.W.2d 743 (Ky. 1984), the case cited by the Governor for that proposition. In Bowling, a Boyd County grand jury returned a report indicating that four former sheriffs had engaged in practices contrary to statute, but did not return indictments against them due to material evidence not being available for our consideration. Id. at 744. Bowling did not hold that names of persons suspected of criminal activity could not be mentioned in the report absent the return of indictments against those persons. It held that the report could not cast aspersions on citizens when the evidence before it is insufficient to persuade the members of the Jury that probable cause exists that an offense was committed. Id. at 745. Ordinarily, if the grand jury has probable cause to believe that a person has committed an offense, it will, indeed, return an indictment. However, because of the Governor's purported blanket pardon, now abetted by a majority of this Court, the grand jury is precluded from issuing any indictments based on violations of the merit system statutes prior to August 29, 2005. That does not mean, however, that it does not have probable cause to believe that offenses were committed. If so, Bowling does not preclude a full and complete grand jury report that identifies the perpetrators, so long as the grand jury specifies that it has probable cause to believe that the persons named committed the offenses. Dead kings of England would rise from their graves with huzzas if they knew that one (though only one) jurisdiction of the Anglo-Saxon legal tradition has finally espoused their cause and rolled back hundreds of years of anti-corruption jurisprudence, including the hard-won independence of the grand jury. But history also has its claims. Rosenberg v. United States, 346 U.S. 273, 310, 73 S.Ct. 1152, 1171, 97 L.Ed. 1607 (1953) (Frankfurter, J., dissenting). And history will not forget nor fondly remember the day that the Supreme Court of Kentucky put its imprimatur on a governor's scheme to cover up alleged wrongdoing within his administration by granting a blanket pardon to all persons under investigation by a sitting grand jury. Accordingly, I dissent. WINTERSHEIMER, J., joins this opinion.