Opinion ID: 106391
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: the objections to the grand jury proceedings.

Text: Ever since Hurtado v. California, 110 U. S. 516 (1884), this Court has consistently held that there is no federal constitutional impediment to dispensing entirely with the grand jury in state prosecutions. The State of Washington abandoned its mandatory grand jury practice some 50 years ago. [1] Since that time prosecutions have been instituted on informations filed by the prosecutor, on many occasions without even a prior judicial determination of probable causea procedure which has likewise had approval here in such cases as Ocampo v. United States, 234 U. S. 91 (1914), and Lem Woon v. Oregon, 229 U. S. 586 (1913). Grand juries in Washington are convened only on special occasions and for specific purposes. The grand jury in this case, the eighth called in King County in 40 years, was summoned primarily to investigate circumstances which had been the subject of the Senate Committee hearings. In his attempts before trial to have the indictment set aside petitioner did not contend that any particular grand juror was prejudiced or biased. Rather, he asserted that the judge impaneling the grand jury had breached his duty to ascertain on voir dire whether any prospective juror had been influenced by the adverse publicity and that this error had been compounded by his failure to adequately instruct the grand jury concerning bias and prejudice. It may be that the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment requires the State, having once resorted to a grand jury procedure, to furnish an unbiased grand jury. Compare Lawn v. United States, 355 U. S. 339, 349-350 (1958); Costello v. United States, 350 U. S. 359, 363 (1956); Hoffman v. United States, 341 U. S. 479, 485 (1951). But we find that it is not necessary for us to determine this question; for even if due process would require a State to furnish an unbiased body once it resorted to grand jury procedurea question upon which we do not remotely intimate any viewwe have concluded that Washington, so far as is shown by the record, did so in this case. Petitioner's appearance before the Senate Committee was current news of high national interest and quite normally was widely publicized throughout the Nation, including his home city of Seattle and the State of Washington. His answers to and conduct before the Committee disclosed the possibility that he had committed local offenses within the jurisdiction of King County, Washington, against the laws of that State. In the light of those disclosures the King County authorities were duty-bound to investigate and, if the State's laws had been violated, to prosecute the offenders. It appears that documentary evidencein the hands of petitioner's unionwas necessary to a complete investigation. The only method available to secure such documents was by grand jury process, and it was decided therefore to impanel a grand jury. This Washington was free to do. Twenty-three prospective grand jurors were called. The trial judge explained, as is customary in such matters, that they had been called primarily to investigate possible crimes committed in King County by officers of the Teamsters Union which had been the subject of the Senate Committee hearings. In impaneling the grand jury the judge, after determining their statutory qualifications, businesses, union affiliations and the like, asked each of the prospective jurors: Is there anything about sitting on this grand jury that might embarrass you at all? In answer to this or the question of whether they were conscious of any prejudice or bias, which was asked whenever previous answers suggested a need for further inquiry, two admitted they were prejudiced by the publicity and were excused. Another stated that whether he was prejudiced was pretty hard to answer, and he, too, was excused. In addition three persons who were or had been members of unions that were affiliated with petitioner's union were excused. The remaining 17 were accepted and sworn as grand jurors and as a part of the oath swore that they would not present [any] person through envy, hatred or malice. Among them were a retired city employee who had been a Teamsters, the manager of a real estate office, a bookkeeper, an engineer, an airplane manufacturer's employee, a seamstress whose husband was a union member, a material inspector, a gravel company superintendent who was a former Teamsters Union member, a civil engineer with the State Department of Fisheries, and an engineer for a gyroscope manufacturer. In his charge to the grand jury the trial judge explained that its function is to inquire into the commission of crime in the county, that ordinarily this was done by the regularly established law enforcement agencies, but that this was impossible here because further investigation was necessary requiring the attendance of witnesses and the examination of books and records which a prosecutor had no power to compel. As to the purpose for which it was called, he explained that disclosures by the Senate Investigating Committee indicated hundreds of thousands of dollars of the funds of the Teamsters Union had been embezzled or stolen by its officers. He also stated that the president of the Teamsters had publicly declared that the money he had received was a loan. This presents a question of fact, he added, the truth of which is for you to ascertain. After mentioning other accusations he concluded, I urge you to do all that you can within practical limitations to ascertain the truth or falsity of these charges. . . . You have a most serious task to perform . . . . It is a tremendous responsibility, and I wish you well in your work. It is true that the judge did not admonish the grand jurors to disregard or disbelieve news reports and publicity concerning petitioner. Nor did he mention or explain the effect of the invocation of the Fifth Amendment by petitioner before the Committee or inquire as to the politics of any panel member. Discussion along such lines might well have added fuel to the flames which some see here. Apparently sensing this dilemma the judge admonished the grand jury that its function was to inquire into the commission of crime in the county and that it was to conduct an examination of witnesses as well as books and records. Twice in his short statement he said that it was for the grand jury to determine whether the charges were true or false. Taking the instructions as a whole, they made manifest that the jurors were to sift the charges by careful investigation, interrogation of witnesses, and examination of records, not by newspaper stories. In the light of these facts and on the attack made we cannot say that the grand jury was biased. It was chosen from the regular jury list. Some six months thereafter a petit jury to try this case was selected from the same community and, as will hereafter be shown, was not found to be prejudiced. Indeed, every judge who passed on the issue in the State's courts, including its highest court, has so held. A look at the grand jury through the record reveals that it was composed of people from all walks of life, some of whom were former union members. The judge immediately and in the presence of all of the panel eliminated six prospective grand jurors when indications of prejudice appeared. No grand juror personally knew petitioner or was shown to be adverse to the institutions with which petitioner is generally identified. Every person who was selected on the grand jury took an oath that he would not indict any person through hatred or malice. Moreover, the grand jury sat for six weeks before any indictment was returned against petitioner. The record also indicates that it heard voluminous testimony on the charges that had been made against petitioner and others and that it gave the matter most meticulous and careful consideration. We therefore conclude that petitioner has failed to show that the body which indicted him was biased or prejudiced against him. In addition to the above due process contention three equal protection arguments are made by petitioner or suggested on his behalf. First, petitioner argues he is a member of a class (Teamsters) that was not accorded equal treatment in grand jury proceedings. The contention is based on references to the Teamsters by the judge impaneling the grand jury as he conducted the voir dire and explained the scope of the investigation. The complete answer to petitioner's argument is that references to the Teamsters were necessary in the voir dire to eliminate persons who might be prejudiced for or against petitioner and in the instructions to explain the purpose and scope of this special body. Petitioner has totally failed to establish that non-Teamsters who are members of groups under investigation are given any different treatment. Secondly, it is said that the Washington statute permitting persons in custody to challenge grand jurors, Revised Code of Washington § 10.28.030, denies equal protection to persons not in custody who are investigated by grand juries. This point is not properly before this Court. Although both opinions of the Washington Supreme Court discuss the interpretation of § 10.28.030, neither considered that question in light of the equal protection argument for that argument was never properly presented to the court in relation to this statute. The Washington Supreme Court has unfailingly refused to consider constitutional attacks upon statutes not made in the trial court, even where the constitutional claims arise from the trial court's interpretation of the challenged statute. E. g., Johnson v. Seattle, 50 Wash. 2d 543, 313 P. 2d 676 (1957). [2] Petitioner's formal attack at the trial court level did not even mention § 10.28.030, much less argue that a restrictive interpretation would be unconstitutional under the Equal Protection Clause. [3] That the prosecution and the court viewed petitioner as outside the scope of § 10.28.030 was brought home to him in the course of the trial court proceedings on his grand jury attack. But even then petitioner did not suggest that constitutional considerations might compel a different result. The failure to inject the equal protection contention into the case was carried forward to the proceedings before the Washington Supreme Court when petitioner failed to comply with that court's rule prescribing the manner in which contentions are to be brought to its attention. Rule 43 of the Rules on Appeal, Revised Code of Washington, provides that [n]o alleged error of the superior court will be considered by this court unless the same be definitely pointed out in the `assignments of error' in appellant's brief. Mere generalized attacks upon the validity of the holding below as petitioner made in his assignments of error [4] are not considered by reason of this rule sufficient to invoke review of the underlying contentions. See, e. g., Washington v. Tanzymore, 54 Wash. 2d 290, 292, 340 P. 2d 178, 179 (1959); Fowles v. Sweeney, 41 Wash. 2d 182, 188, 248 P. 2d 400, 403, (1952). Nor will the Washington Supreme Court search through the brief proper to find specific contentions which should have been listed within the assignments of error. See Washington ex rel. Linden v. Bunge, 192 Wash. 245, 251, 73 P. 2d 516, 518-519 (1937). Moreover, the failure of petitioner to argue the constitutional contention in his brief, as opposed to merely setting it forth as he did in one sentence of his 125-page brief, is considered by the Washington Supreme Court to be an abandonment or waiver of such contention. E. g., Martin v. J. C. Penney Co., 50 Wash. 2d 560, 565, 313 P. 2d 689, 693 (1957); Washington v. Williams, 49 Wash. 2d 354, 356-357, 301 P. 2d 769, 770 (1956). Nor was the equal protection contention made at all in the petitions for rehearing filed after the Supreme Court had agreed with the lower court's interpretation of the statute to exclude petitioner. Assuming arguendo that for the purposes of our jurisdiction the question would have been timely if raised in a petition for rehearing, not having been raised there or elsewhere or actually decided by the Washington Supreme Court, the argument cannot be entertained here under an unbroken line of precedent. E. g., Ferguson v. Georgia, 365 U. S. 570, 572 (1961); Capital City Dairy Co. v. Ohio, 183 U. S. 238, 248 (1902). Furthermore, it was not within the scope of the questions to which the writ of certiorari in this case was specifically limited, 365 U. S. 866, and for this additional reason cannot now be presented. The final argument under the Equal Protection Clause is that Washington has singled out petitioner for special treatment by denying him the procedural safeguards the law affords others to insure an unbiased grand jury. But this reasoning proceeds on the wholly unsupported assumption that such procedures have been required in Washington in all other cases. [5] Moreover, it is contrary to the underlying finding of the Superior Court, in denying the motion to dismiss the indictment, that the grand jurors were lawfully selected and instructed. And even if we were to assume that Washington law requires such procedural safeguards, the petitioner's argument here comes down to a contention that Washington law was misapplied. Such misapplication cannot be shown to be an invidious discrimination. We have said time and again that the Fourteenth Amendment does not assure uniformity of judicial decisions . . . [or] immunity from judicial error . . . . Milwaukee Electric Ry. & Light Co. v. Wisconsin ex rel. Milwaukee, 252 U. S. 100, 106 (1920). Were it otherwise, every alleged misapplication of state law would constitute a federal constitutional question. Finally, were we to vacate this conviction because of a failure to follow certain procedures although it has not been shown that their ultimate enda fair grand jury proceedingwas not obtained, we would be exalting form over substance contrary to our previous application of the Equal Protection Clause, e. g., Graham v. West Virginia, 224 U. S. 616, 630 (1912). Petitioner also contends that a witness before the grand jury was improperly interrogated in a manner which prejudiced his case before that body. It appears that an employee of petitioner's union was called before the grand jury to testify in reference to activities within his employment. During his first appearance he made statements which he subsequently changed on a voluntary reappearance before the grand jury some two days before the indictment was returned. On the second appearance the prosecutor attacked the witness' changed story as incredible and warned him that he was under oath, that he might be prosecuted for perjury, and that there was no occasion for him to go to jail for petitioner. The record indicates that the prosecutor became incensed over the witness' new story; and though some of his threats were out of bounds, it appears that they had no effect upon the witness whatsoever for he stuck to his story. We can find no irregularity of constitutional proportions, and we therefore reject this contention.