Opinion ID: 2633129
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: jurisdiction of the multicounty grand jury

Text: ¶ 12 Grand juries are a matter of constitutional law in Oklahoma. Okla. Const., art. 2, § 18. [2] A grand jury can be convened by one of three methods. First, a district judge must convene a grand jury to investigate allegations of criminal acts within a single county if the judge is presented with a petition signed by an appropriate number of qualified electors from that county. Second, a district judge can unilaterally convene a grand jury to investigate allegations of criminal acts within a single county. These first two methods have existed since statehood. In 1971, the Legislature submitted and the voters approved an amendment to article 2, section 18 creating the third method. This method allows the Attorney General to file an application to convene a grand jury to investigate crimes which are alleged to have been committed in said county or involving multicounty criminal activities. ¶ 13 Petitioners argue that article 2, section 18 permits the Attorney General to convene a grand jury for one of two distinct purposes: (1) to investigate crimes which are alleged to have been committed in said county; or (2) to investigate crimes which are alleged . . . involving multicounty criminal activities. In other words, Petitioners interpret the constitutional language in the disjunctive, authorizing the Attorney General to convene a grand jury with only one of two possible objectives: either to investigate within a single county or to investigate in multiple counties. [3] According to Petitioners, the Attorney General is not authorized to convene a multicounty grand jury to investigate activities occurring within a single county. They contend, therefore, that the multicounty grand jury convened by the Attorney General pursuant to this Court's April 21, 2005, order lacked the jurisdiction to subpoena Petitioners as part of an investigation into crimes alleged to have occurred within only one county. [4] ¶ 14 To fully evaluate this claim, we must review the statutes and case law interpreting the constitutional creation of the multicounty grand jury. The Legislature enacted the Multicounty Grand Jury Act in 1987. Okla. Stat. tit. 22, §§ 350-363 (2001 & Supp.2007). Section 351 directs the Attorney General to file the application to convene a multicounty grand jury with the Supreme Court. (The recipient of the application is not specified in the Constitution.) As originally enacted, section 351(A)(1) directed the Attorney General to file an application when he considers it to be in the public interest to convene a grand jury with jurisdiction extending beyond the boundaries of a single county. Upon granting the application, the Supreme Court was directed by section 351(B)(1) to issue an order to convene a multicounty grand jury having jurisdiction over all counties approved by the State Supreme Court and requested in the application by the Attorney General. In addition, section 353, as originally enacted, provided that the jurisdiction of the multicounty grand jury shall extend throughout the state or through all counties designated in the State Supreme Court's order. ¶ 15 In State v. Bezdicek , the Court of Criminal Appeals declared that a multicounty grand jury lacked the jurisdiction to investigate crimes alleged to have occurred in only one county. 2002 OK CR 28, 53 P.3d 917. Bezdicek was an interlocutory appeal from a criminal prosecution arising from a multicounty grand jury investigation. It considered whether evidence obtained pursuant to a multicounty grand jury's subpoena was properly suppressed because the alleged criminal activities did not involve more than one county. The Court concluded that, because section 351(A)(2)(a) permitted the Attorney General to request a multicounty grand jury for organized crime or public corruption, or both, involving more than one county of the state, it did not grant the multicounty grand jury jurisdiction to investigate within a single county. Id. ¶ 4, 53 P.3d at 918. ¶ 16 The Court of Criminal Appeals then examined whether the Constitution provided the missing jurisdiction. It focused on article 2, section 18's language permitting the Attorney General to convene a grand jury to investigate crimes which are alleged to have been committed in said county or involving multicounty criminal activities, and concluded that the use of or implied that the grand jury could be convened either to investigate single county criminal activities or multicounty criminal activities but not both. Id. ¶ 14, 53 P.3d at 920-21. Nothing in Section 18 gives a grand jury, empaneled for the specific purpose of investigating `multicounty criminal activities,' the authority to investigate activities isolated to a single county. Id. (emphasis omitted). The Court also examined the ballot title used when the constitutional amendment was presented to the voters in 1971 as well as legislative history to conclude that the Legislature did not intend to authorize multicounty grand juries to investigate criminal activities occurring in a single county. Id. ¶¶ 16-19, 53 P.3d at 921-22. Evidence obtained as part of an investigation that exceeded the multicounty grand jury's authority, therefore, was properly suppressed. ¶ 17 The Legislature responded quickly to Bezdicek and amended the Multicounty Grand Jury Act to give multicounty grand juries jurisdiction to investigate crimes whether they arise in one county or more than one county. Section 351 now provides that the Supreme Court's order granting the Attorney General's application shall [c]onvene a multicounty grand jury having jurisdiction . . . in any single county or in multiple counties of this state. Section 353 now provides that [t]he jurisdiction of a multicounty grand jury . . . shall extend throughout the state, including but not limited to, a single county. Petitioners maintain, however, that these amendments have no effect because the multicounty grand jury's jurisdiction is limited by the Constitution and cannot be changed or expanded by statute. ¶ 18 We, therefore, turn again to the Oklahoma Constitution. One of the earliest opinions issued by this Court states the basic principle of constitutional interpretation with a clarity that still resonates 100 years later: In construing a provision of a Constitution, the primary inquiry is to ascertain the intention of the framers, and of the people who adopted the same, and in such construction and determination, technical rules should be disregarded, and, as a rule, a mean between a strict and a liberal construction followed. State ex rel. Caldwell v. Hooker, 1908 OK 244, ¶ 0, 22 Okla. 712, 98 P. 964, 965 (syl. no. 3 by the Court). The intent of those who framed and adopted a constitutional provision must be found in the text if possible; if the text is not ambiguous, courts may not search beyond it for additional meaning. See Draper v. State, 1980 OK 117, ¶ 8, 621 P.2d 1142, 1145-46. ¶ 19 Article 2, section 18 authorizes a grand jury convened by the Attorney General to investigat[e] crimes which are alleged to have been committed in said county or involving multicounty criminal activities. It seems to this Court that the language is clear and that its reasonable import is that it authorizes a grand jury convened by the Attorney General to investigate crimes whether they occur in one county or more than one county. A contrary conclusion-requiring the Attorney General to determine before filing an application for a grand jury whether any possible criminal activity was limited to a single county-presumes uncanny foresight on the part of the Attorney General. [5] ¶ 20 Legislative history provides any clarity missing from the constitutional language. Admittedly, the text of the question placed on the ballot did not add much to the debate, since it merely substituted the phrase one county for said county, while the title of the amendment used the term Single or Multi-County. [6] See Bezdicek, 2002 OK CR 28, ¶¶ 16-19, 53 P.3d at 921-22. On October 25, 1971, however, the Executive Committee of the State Legislative Council (which included the Speaker of the House and the President pro tem of the Senate) issued a press release (incorporating materials dated October 20, 1971) with the following explanation of the proposed amendment: In addition to present procedures for convening a grand jury, the proposed amendment to Article II, Section 18, orders the convening of a grand jury (in any county of the state) by a district judge upon application by the Attorney General. It also authorizes the Attorney General to conduct the grand jury in investigating crimes which are alleged to have been committed in said county or involving multicounty criminal activities. The proposed change does not affect the statutory power of a grand jury to investigate and indict for crimes committed or triable within the county where it is convened. The proposed amendment extends the reach of a grand jury investigation to include also criminal activities that may occur in counties other than the county where convened. (Emphasis added.) That explanation was released by authority of House Concurrent Resolution No. 1002 (1971) which directed the State Legislative Council to inform the press of the nature of proposed constitutional amendments before the election. ¶ 21 It is apparent that the Legislature intended for the amendment to expand the existing grand jury jurisdiction to allow a grand jury to investigate crimes extending beyond a single county. Indeed, the Legislature arguably intended to allow a single county grand jury to investigate multicounty criminal activities so long as it was convened by the Attorney General. This supports the conclusion that the multicounty grand jury has the jurisdiction to investigate crimes whether they occur in one county or many counties. An artificial line between single county grand juries and multicounty grand juries was not, apparently, within the contemplation of the Legislature. [7]