Opinion ID: 1143317
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: The Grand Jury Hearing

Text: The People have chosen a poor vehicle for arguing that the district attorney is not obligated to present exculpatory evidence to the grand jury unless the jury calls for it. Not only did the district attorney fail to inform the grand jury of petitioner's preliminary hearing testimony, but he also created the false impression that petitioner would refuse to testify if called. At the conclusion of the grand jury hearing, after three other witnesses had testified in the interim, the district attorney recalled the arresting officer and elicited his testimony that, following arrest and advisement of his Miranda rights, petitioner had refused to make a statement upon the advice of counsel. Reference to petitioner's invocation of the privilege against self-incrimination was clear misconduct, as the Attorney General concedes. ( People v. Miller (1966) 245 Cal. App.2d 112, 156 [53 Cal. Rptr. 720], disapproved on another ground in People v. Doherty (1967) 67 Cal.2d 9, 14-15 [59 Cal. Rptr. 857, 429 P.2d 177]; see Griffin v. California (1965) 380 U.S. 609 [14 L.Ed.2d 106, 85 S.Ct. 1229]; People v. Modesto (1967) 66 Cal.2d 695, 710-711 [59 Cal. Rptr. 124, 427 P.2d 788].) But more importantly, the grand jury's power to order the production of evidence which may explain away the charges under consideration was thereby thwarted.