Opinion ID: 1165071
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Production of Grand Jury Tapes

Text: The state contends that the trial court did not err in refusing to permit inspection of the tape of Losh's testimony. The argument made in support of that contention rests upon ORS 135.855(1)(c), which provides: (1) The following material and information shall not be subject to discovery under ORS 135.805 to 135.873:    (c) Transcripts, recordings, or memoranda of testimony of witnesses before the grand jury, except transcripts or recordings of statements made by the defendant. The state claims that this statute reflects a long established policy that maintains the secrecy of grand jury proceedings and cites State ex rel. Johnson v. Roth, 276 Or. 883, 557 P.2d 230 (1976), as authority for that claim. In a sense, Roth may be read as so describing ORS 135.855(1)(c), but we believe a closer analysis reveals the true place of ORS 135.855(1)(c) in the statutory scheme. In Roth this court noted the existence of a policy long established by the courts to maintain the secrecy of grand jury proceedings. We further noted that the statutes seek to preserve that policy and cited ORS 132.060, 132.210 and 132.220. ORS 132.060 prescribes the form of oath to be administered to the members of the grand jury, and the oath provides, in part, that you will keep secret the proceedings before you. ORS 132.210 provides: A grand juror cannot be questioned for anything he says or any vote he gives, while acting as such, relative to any matter legally pending before the grand jury, except for a perjury or false swearing of which he may have been guilty in giving testimony before such jury. ORS 132.220 provides: A member of a grand jury may be required by any court to disclose: (1) The testimony of a witness examined before the grand jury, for the purpose of ascertaining whether it is consistent with that given by the witness before the court. (2) The testimony given before such grand jury by any person, upon a charge against such person for perjury or false swearing or upon his trial therefor. In Roth we took note that ORS 135.855(1)(c) was a rejection of a proposal to broaden the opportunities for discovery of grand jury testimony and that ORS 135.855(1) reflected the policy already statutorily prescribed by ORS 132.220. We noted the official commentary of the Criminal Law Revision Commission contained in the Proposed Oregon Criminal Procedure Code, Final Draft and Report (Report), November, 1972, at page 190: Subsection (1)(c) is based upon the present secrecy of grand jury proceedings, as prescribed in ORS 132.220. (Emphasis added.) Exceptions to the secrecy requirements of ORS 132.220 had existed long prior to the enactment of ORS 135.855(1)(c). As we observed in Roth: However, disclosure of the testimony of witnesses called before the grand jury may be permitted in three instances: (1) when the testimony of a witness at a criminal trial may be inconsistent with his testimony before the grand jury, ORS 132.220(1); (2) when a witness is charged with perjury, ORS 132.220(2); and (3) when permitted by the court in the furtherance of justice, Gowin v. Heider, 237 Or. 266, 286, 386 P.2d 1, 391 P.2d 630 (1964)[.] 276 Or. at 886, 557 P.2d 230. The furtherance of justice exception is not some recent judicial gloss upon ORS 132.220. That section comes from Deady, General Laws of Oregon, Criminal Code, § 58, [2] which was considered by this court in this respect in State of Oregon v. Moran, 15 Or. 262, 14 P. 419 (1887). The issue was phrased by the court: It therefore becomes necessary to determine whether or not it is competent for the trial court, in the exercise of a sound judicial discretion, to allow a grand juror to testify as to matters which transpired before that body, when, in the opinion of the court, the ends of justice require it.  (Emphasis added.) 15 Or. at 273, 14 P. 419. Relying upon § 58 and cases from other jurisdictions and upon a quote from a treatise, this court resolved that the grand juror should be allowed to testify. In 1 Bishop on Criminal Procedure, § 859 (2d ed. 1872), the author is concerned with the oath of secrecy taken by a grand juror and concludes the discussion as follows:    If we look at the principle on which this question rests, we have the following. The reasons which require the secrecy are of a nature looking to the public good; because, if the grand jury could leave their room and disclose what they are doing, defendants who had not been arrested could make their escape; and because, also, persons would be deterred from voluntarily going forward and informing of crime before them. But when the reasons for keeping the testimony private have passed away, the obligation of secrecy would seem to have ended also. Yet when, in addition to this, the claims of public justice must go unsatisfied unless the disclosure is made, the same reason which originally required secrecy requires that the secret be no longer kept. The result, on the whole, is, that, in matter of principle, the disclosure should never be made except in obedience to a duty; but, when, after the offender has been arrested, some demand is made on behalf of public justice, or there is some other call of duty of the like urgency, the obligation of secrecy should yield to the new claim.    (Emphasis added.) [3] It is seen, therefore, that the idea of piercing the veil of grand jury secrecy in the furtherance of justice is not new; it should not be startling. Despite what the Criminal Law Revision Commission specifically said in its Report at page 190, quoted above, it has been argued to us that ORS 135.855(1)(c) was meant to protect a recording of the testimony of a witness before the grand jury from discovery at any and all times. [4] If so, the Commission and the legislature chose an odd place in which to codify that section. By its own terms, the section applies only to discovery under ORS 135.805 to 135.873. The Commission's draft from which those sections of ORS are taken separately groups the sections under the name, Pre-Trial Discovery as Article 11 of the Final Draft and Report. The commentary reveals the following sense of the Commission with respect to the application of what is now ORS 135.805 to 135.873: Section 321 [pertinent part codified as ORS 135.805] is derived from the ABA Standards Relating to Discovery and Procedure Before Trial   . (Emphasis added.) ORS 135.805 describes the applicability of the sections contained in ORS 135.805 to 135.873. In the case at bar we are not concerned with discovery before trial. If, as has been argued, the Commission and the 1973 Legislature, which acted upon the Commission's Report, meant to absolutely bar a defendant from discovery in the circumstances presented by this case, they chose a strange way to do so. The Commission's commentary as to what it did intend and its placement of the section relied upon as a bar, when taken together with the case law from State of Oregon v. Moran, supra , through Gowin v. Heider, 237 Or. 266, 386 P.2d 1, 391 P.2d 630 (1964), leads us to the conclusion that there was no legislative intent to overrule the recognized exception to the rule of grand jury secrecy which rests upon furthering justice. [5] As its point of departure, the dissent takes the decision of this court in State v. Foster, 242 Or. 101, 407 P.2d 901 (1965), and states that we there adopted the  Jencks  rule. We believe that is not the proper interpretation of Foster. Indeed, that opinion expressly rejects the assertion that Jencks v. United States, 353 U.S. 657, 77 S.Ct. 1007, 1 L.Ed.2d 1103 (1957), provides the basis for the decision in Foster: It has been urged that the rule we approve is of recent origin and comes as an aftermath of Jencks v. United States, 1957, 353 U.S. 657, 77 S.Ct. 1007, 1 L.Ed.2d 1103, and the subsequently enacted Jencks Act (18 U.S.C.A. 3500, (1957)), and is, therefore, limited to practice in the Federal courts. In essence the Jencks Act only codifies the rule that had been of long standing in both federal and many state courts. Orfield, Discovery and Inspection in Federal Criminal Procedure, 1957, 59 W.Va.L.Rev. 221. See Gordon v. United States, supra, 344 U.S. [414] 419, [73 S.Ct. 369, 373, 97 L.Ed. 447], where the court, in adopting this rule, made this mention of its prior existence: `Despite some contrary holdings on which the courts below may have relied, we think their reasoning is outweighed by that of highly respectable authority in state and lower federal courts in support of the view that an accused is entitled to the production of such documents.[]' (Footnote of citations omitted). The Gordon opinion utilized a statement, also found in other cases, by Judge Cooley in People v. Davis, 1884, 52 Mich. 569, 573, 18 N.W. 362: `The State has no interest in interposing an obstacle to the disclosure of facts, unless it is interested in convicting accused parties on the testimony of untrustworthy persons.' 242 Or. at 104, 407 P.2d 901. Although the dissent states that the rule we expressed in Foster is based upon questionable observations, we find upon re-examination of Professor Orfield's article and of Gordon v. United States, 344 U.S. 414, 73 S.Ct. 369, 97 L.Ed. 447 (1953), that the criticized observations are sound. It is true that in Foster we held that the discovery of the state's witness's pre-trial statements could not take place until after the witness had testified upon direct examination. It is also true that we held there was no right to pre-trial discovery of the statements, and that holding has surely been vitiated by the enactment of ORS 135.805 through 135.873. We do not understand, however, that there is anything in Foster or in State ex rel. Dooley v. Connall, 257 Or. 94, 475 P.2d 582 (1970), also cited by the dissent as a part of the historical setting of the 1973 revision of the law pertaining to criminal procedure, that should cause us to agree with the dissent's position that ORS 135.855(1)(c) bars discovery of the tape in the circumstances presented in the case at bar. The dissent has traced some legislative history, which supports a conclusion that some members of the Criminal Law Revision Commission were concerned about destroying secrecy of grand jury proceedings. Our examination of that history leads us to believe that perhaps those members were not aware of then existing statutes and case law above discussed which permitted some piercing of the veil. The crack feared by Mr. Blensly had long existed. It is our conclusion that the legislative history does not lead unerringly either to the result we reach or that for which the dissent contends. Quite simply, we believe that either result is permissible, and we hold that the tape is discoverable in the circumstances in the furtherance of justice. [6] The state's final position is that if discovery of Losh's testimony before the grand jury is to be allowed, that can only be accomplished as prescribed in ORS 132.220 by calling a grand juror. [7] This argument confuses discovery with manner of proof. ORS 132.220 deals with the power of a court to require a grand juror to testify as a means of proving what took place before the grand jury. [8] Unless the defendant is afforded the right to inspect the tape of Losh's testimony, defendant has no practical method of discovering whether to call a grand juror to testify as to inconsistencies, if any. [9] We hold that after a witness has testified on direct examination by the state, the defendant is entitled to examine an existing tape recording of that witness's testimony given in the grand jury proceedings that led to the return of the indictment upon which trial is held. We do not, by this decision, condone wholesale orders for disclosure of grand jury recordings. Where a witness before the grand jury has testified at trial for the state, a particularized need for disclosure exists for purposes of testing the witness's credibility. Compare United States v. Procter & Gamble, 356 U.S. 677, 683, 78 S.Ct. 983, 986, 2 L.Ed.2d 1077 (1958). As such, the furtherance of justice requires disclosure of prior recorded statements.