Opinion ID: 1855331
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: evidentiary hearing on grand jury challenge

Text: It appears that the appellant has waived his right to attack the composition of the grand jury by failing to timely raise his objections pursuant to F.S. § 905.03, F.S.A., and F.S. § 905.05, F.S.A. Seay v. State, 286 So.2d 532 (Fla. 1973). Nonetheless, we shall proceed, as we did in Seay, to consider the merits of the grand jury attack, inasmuch as a justiciable issue of constitutionality if presented. Appellant has asserted by various motions that the grand jury which returned the indictment against him was improperly constituted in that it discriminatorily excluded certain identifiable groups (specified in the motions) from the grand jury master list, and sought to prove his charge of discriminatory selection of the grand jury pool by deposing the grand jury commissioners and clerk of the grand jury commission and by examining the Dade County Grand Jury Master List. The motion for production of the grand jury master list was denied, as was the motion for permission to depose the chairman and clerk of the grand jury commission. Appellant also sought to dismiss the information against him, which was based upon the underlying indictment of the grand jury. These motions to dismiss involved two separate attacks: (1) a claim that the composition of the grand jury pool was in violation of his rights under the due process and equal protection clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, and (2) a contention that Chapters 57-550 and 70-1000, providing for the means by which the grand jury pool was selected, were unconstitutional in various regards. The second issue of statutory validity raised in these motions was separately dealt with in appellant's brief, and will be separately dealt with hereafter. We first consider the assertion in (1) above that the composition of the grand jury pool was unconstitutionally discriminatory and the related complaint that appellant's rights have been violated by denying him the means by which to prove this allegation. Both of these propositions have been previously considered by this Court in Rojas v. State, supra , and have been decided adversely to appellant. The only material distinction between the attack made here and that made in Rojas is that appellant here, unlike the appellant in Rojas , wished to depose the chairman and clerk of the grand jury commission, on grounds that the deposition was material and relevant to his challenge to the grand jury pool. Here, as in Rojas , the appellant's assertions that the grand jury pool was improperly drawn were not supported by any factual assertions sufficient to raise a suspicion that the grand jury pool was in fact improperly constituted, and, as in Rojas , the attack was not supported by an affidavit setting forth facts sufficient to raise a reasonable suspicion that the grand jury pool might in fact have been improperly constituted. Before a court will be required to permit a full-scale investigation of its jury panel, the panel must be shown to be suspect, [6] and no such showing was made in the instant case. This requirement of showing a factual basis for the challenge in order to require a full-scale investigation of the panel does not, of course, require that the challenger show the panel to be improperly constituted, but it does require that the challenger assert facts tending to raise a doubt as to whether the panel may be improperly constituted; if such factual assertions are made, an inquiry will then follow to see if such suspicion, duly alleged, is supported by proof. In the present case, no such factual basis was asserted for the challenge, and the trial court merely ruled upon a motion which it found not to be well founded. The trial court did not deal with the validity of any statute in denying the request for evidentiary hearing, the motion for production of the grand jury master list, or the motion to depose the chairman and clerk of the grand jury commission; nor did the trial court expressly construe any constitutional provision in so ruling. Accordingly, our direct appeals jurisdiction was not properly founded upon such rulings. In denying that portion of the motion to dismiss which was based upon an assertion that the grand jury panel had been improperly drawn (other than the statutory attack discussed below), the trial court also did not pass upon the validity of any statute nor expressly and overtly construe any constitutional provision. Rather, the trial court passed upon a motion which was without any factual support. Accordingly, the only basis upon which we may review this case upon direct appeal is if our direct appeals jurisdiction has been properly invoked by appellant's assertion that Chapters 57-550 and 70-1000 are unconstitutional.