Opinion ID: 1948183
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: absence of an attorney from the panel

Text: Although it is the usual practice in this state to include an attorney on the grand jury panel; State v. Menillo, supra, 274 n.1; nothing in our case law or the present statutes requires it. The defendant does not claim otherwise, but submits that improper, inadmissible evidence may have been heard by the grand jury because no attorney was present, and that he was prejudiced thereby. This claim seems to assume that the grand jury functions like a trial before a petit jury, where evidentiary rules are required. The defendant misconceives the purpose of the grand jury. It is, of course, desirable to elicit evidence which would be admissible in a trial court. No claim is made, however, that evidence of that sort was not elicited in this case. The complaint is only that some undisclosed quantum of inadmissible evidence was also heard. The grand jury, here and in England, has, for hundreds of years, convened as a body of laymen, free from technical rules and acting in secret. Their proceedings `are both ex parte and interlocutory; moreover, the grand jury only seeks for a probable cause; hence, on all principles, the jury-trial rules of Evidence should not apply. Moreover, in point of policy, no rules should hamper their inquiries, nor need a presentment amounting only to probable cause be based on a system of rigid sifting of evidence.' 1 Wigmore, Evidence (3d Ed.) § 4, p. 21. State v. Stallings, 154 Conn. 272, 280, 224 A.2d 718 (1966); see also State v. Stepney, 181 Conn. 268, 272, 435 A.2d 701 (1980), cert. denied, 449 U.S. 1077, 101 S. Ct. 856, 66 L. Ed. 2d 799 (1981); State v. Fasset, 16 Conn. 457, 472-73 (1844). Because grand juries are permitted to return a true bill based on inadmissible evidence, the absence of an attorney on the Avcollie panel is irrelevant to the validity of the indictment.