Opinion ID: 2398540
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: grand jury minutes

Text: The defendants also contend that the trial justice erred in denying their motion to inspect the grand jury minutes of the prosecutrix's testimony. Success on that motion was dependent on defendants' establishing at the trial level a particularized need for those minutes, that is, for example, by adducing evidence that would satisfy the trial justice    that extraneous circumstances provide[d] reasonable grounds for belief that the testimony of the witness might be vulnerable to impeachment on cross-examination by reason of potential inconsistencies that might be disclosed upon an adequate inspection of the minutes by the defendants' counsel. State v. Ouimette, 110 R.I. 747, 763, 298 A.2d 124, 134 (1972) ; accord, State v. Crescenzo, 114 R.I. 242, 253-54, 332 A.2d 421, 428 (1975) ; State v. Palmigiano, 112 R.I. 348, 360-61, 309 A.2d 855, 862-63 (1973). On appeal defendants point to no record evidence suggesting that at trial they established a particularized need for the requested inspection, but instead simply advance vague assertions that they required the grand jury testimony for a proper evaluation of possible exculpatory evidence. Those assertions fall fat short of persuading us that the trial justice abused his discretion in denying their motion.