Opinion ID: 2827481
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: analysis

Text: PETITION ¶8 The respondent judges argue that we lack jurisdiction to issue an extraordinary writ in this case. We disagree. Utah Rule of Civil Procedure 65B allows us to review the decisions of “officer[s] exercising judicial functions,” and we conclude that the panel exercises a judicial function. A. We May Review the Decisions of Officers Exercising Judicial Functions ¶9 Our power to issue extraordinary writs is grounded in statute and in the Utah Constitution, both of which grant the supreme court “original jurisdiction to issue all extraordinary writs.” UTAH CONST. art. VIII, § 3; UTAH CODE § 78A-3-102(2). Our exercise of this power is regulated by rule 65B of the Utah Rules of Civil Procedure. Under that rule, a party may petition the court for an extraordinary writ if (1) it has suffered a grievance that falls into one 3 STATE v. HON. CHRISTIANSEN Opinion of the Court of the categories listed in the rule and (2) “no other plain, speedy and adequate remedy is available.” UTAH R. CIV. P. 65B(a). ¶10 In this case, both parties agree that no other plain, speedy, and adequate remedy is available. [Petitioner supp. Brief (public) 2; Respondent supp. brief (public) 3] Neither the statute delineating our jurisdiction nor the statute establishing the grand jury panel provides for a direct appeal from the panel’s decision. See UTAH CODE § 78A-3-102 (supreme court jurisdiction); id. § 77-10a-2 (establishing the grand jury panel). No other basis has been asserted that would permit us to hear such an appeal, and no other procedure has been suggested by which the state’s asserted grievance could be redressed. If the state is to have a remedy, it must be by extraordinary writ. ¶11 Therefore, the only question is whether the state has suffered a grievance that falls into one of the categories listed in the rule. The state contends that it has satisfied the requirements of Rule 65B(d): “Appropriate relief may be granted . . . where an inferior court, administrative agency, or officer exercising judicial functions has exceeded its jurisdiction or abused its discretion . . . .” UTAH R. CIV. P. 65B(d)(2)(A). The rule further provides that “[w]here the challenged proceedings are judicial in nature, the court’s review shall not extend further than to determine whether the respondent has regularly pursued its authority,” Id. 65B(d)(4), but as we have recently held, “[a] court wrongfully uses its judicial authority when it abuses its discretion.” Snow, Christensen & Martineau v. Lindberg, 2013 UT 15, ¶ 21, 299 P.3d 1058; see also State v. Barrett, 2005 UT 88, ¶¶ 7–26, 127 P.3d 682 (history and meaning of Rule 65B); id. ¶ 26 (“[E]xtraordinary relief is available upon a showing that the lower court abused its discretion . . . .”). ¶12 Whether we have authority to review the panel’s decision therefore depends on whether it is “an inferior court, administrative agency, or officer exercising judicial functions.” UTAH R. CIV. P. 65B(d)(2)(A). B. The Panel Exercises a Judicial Function ¶13 Before addressing the question of whether summoning a grand jury is a judicial function, we note two important facts. First, the grand jury panel is composed of district court judges and possesses “the authority of the district court.” UTAH CODE § 77-10a- 2(1)(a). Second, the Utah Constitution explicitly provides that “no person charged with the exercise of powers properly belonging to one of these departments, shall exercise any functions appertaining to either of the others, except in the cases herein expressly directed or permitted.” UTAH CONST. art. V, § 1. These two facts suggest that 4 Cite as: 2015 UT 74 Opinion of the Court unless the panel’s function is judicial, its existence and function may violate the Utah Constitution. ¶14 Fortunately, we conclude that the panel’s function is in fact judicial. To arrive at this conclusion, we look first to the history of grand juries, in Utah and elsewhere, in order to shed light on the role the panel is intended to perform. We then look to the role the panel plays today, concluding that it is consistent with the other functions judges perform in our criminal justice system.
¶15 It is challenging to determine whether summoning grand juries is a judicial function in the modern sense because the grand jury, one of the oldest institutions of Anglo-American law, predates our concept of separation of powers by several centuries. 2 Its purpose and form have changed radically and repeatedly in its millennium of existence, 3 as have the procedures by which it is summoned. 2 Juries of accusation were required by the Assize of Clarendon in 1166. JOHN H. LANGBEIN ET AL., HISTORY OF THE COMMON LAW: THE DEVELOPMENT OF ANGLO-AMERICAN LEGAL INSTITUTIONS 35–43 (2009). The right to a grand jury as a safeguard against unjust prosecutions was established by the Statute of Westminster in 1285 and a Statute of Edward III in 1352. Id. at 216–19. In comparison, the seminal argument for dividing governmental power among separate legislative, executive, and judicial branches—Montesquieu’s The Spirit of the Laws—was not published until 1748. We are not the first court to recognize the difficulty of fitting the grand jury into current understandings of the separation of powers. In the twentieth century, federal courts sometimes called the grand jury a judicial institution and sometimes called it part of the executive branch. Niki Kuckes, The Democratic Prosecutor: Explaining the Constitutional Function of the Federal Grand Jury, 94 GEO. L.J. 1265, 1274 (2006). Eventually the U.S. Supreme Court concluded that the grand jury “belongs to no branch of the institutional Government.” United States v. Williams, 504 U.S. 36, 47 (1992). 3 For example, when juries of accusation were first established, they did not hear evidence gathered by professional police. (There were no professional police.) Instead, the jurors were expected to arrive already informed, whether by personal knowledge or by rumor, about the crimes they were to charge. LANGBEIN, supra note 2, at 208–09. 5 STATE v. HON. CHRISTIANSEN Opinion of the Court ¶16 Originally, juries of accusation were convened by officers of the crown who, like the crown itself, had both executive and judicial powers. 4 Later, juries were convened by judges. For most of the institution’s history, however, grand juries were necessary for all felony prosecutions and were therefore summoned as a matter of course whenever felony cases were to be brought. ¶17 Allowing judges to decide whether a grand jury is warranted, as Utah does, has its roots in nineteenth-century criticism of the grand jury system. By that time, preliminary hearings before magistrates—originally a means to gather evidence of guilt—had become what they are in Utah today: public, adversary proceedings that screen out unjustified prosecutions. In comparison with preliminary hearings, grand jury investigations came to be seen as “costly, slow, amateur, and prone to error,” 5 not to mention secretive and unfair, given the defendant’s lack of representation at the proceedings. ¶18 Beginning in the 1850s, this criticism led a number of states to allow prosecution by information in all criminal cases, thereby removing the grand jury from its traditional role of protecting citizens from unjust prosecution. 1 SARAH SUN BEALE ET AL., GRAND JURY LAW AND PRACTICE 2D § 1:5, at 22–23 (rev. 2014). None of them abolished the grand jury entirely, however. Id. at 22. Instead, they kept the grand jury as an inquisitorial body whose most prominent purpose was the investigation of public corruption. Id. at 25–26. ¶19 California considered this investigative role so important that it required a grand jury to be summoned “at least once a year in each county.” CAL. CONST. art. I, § 8 (1879) (current version at CAL. CONST. art. I, § 23). But not all reformers were comfortable with grand juries’ investigative powers; some decried the institution as a modern Star Chamber whose secret proceedings routinely violated the civil liberties of the people they investigated. RICHARD D. YOUNGER, THE PEOPLE’S PANEL: THE GRAND JURY IN THE UNITED STATES, 1634–1941, at 66, 68 (1963). Such criticism led other states— including prominently Michigan, Washington, and Wisconsin—to 4 For example, county sheriffs presided over courts and conducted trials in cases of minor crime, id. at 40; but they were also tax collectors and jailors, id. at 18–19. 5 Id. at 708. But see Roger A. Fairfax, Jr., Grand Jury Innovation: Toward a Functional Makeover of the Ancient Bulwark of Liberty, 19 WM. & MARY BILL RTS. J. 339, 341–45 (2010) (disputing these arguments against grand juries). 6 Cite as: 2015 UT 74 Opinion of the Court pass laws under which “only a judge could initiate a grand jury investigation.” 6 ¶20 Utah joined this latter group when its constitution took effect in 1896. Using language borrowed from “Michigan, Wisconsin, Washington, Colorado and California,” 7 the new Utah Constitution allowed all offenses to be prosecuted either “by information after examination and commitment by a magistrate” or “by indictment, with or without such examination and commitment.” UTAH CONST. art. I, § 13 (1896). And on the issue of when grand juries should be called, Utah followed Michigan and Washington, not California: “[N]o grand jury shall be drawn or summoned unless in the opinion of the judge of the district, public interest demands it.” Id. ¶21 This constitutional provision was amended in 1948 to allow the legislature to regulate “[t]he formation of the grand jury.” UTAH CONST. art. I, § 13; see also 1947 Utah Laws 483, 483–84 (proposing the amendment). But the legislature, while repeatedly amending Utah’s grand jury laws, has never strayed from the notion that judges should decide whether a grand jury is necessary, as reflected in the following history: 1. Until 1967, the legislature kept the original constitutional scheme: a single district judge could summon a grand jury if he determined it was in the public interest. UTAH CODE § 7718-1 (1953). 2. From 1967 to 1980, the judges of each district were required to sit en banc at least once every other year to hear citizens’ requests for grand juries. They were to summon a grand jury if they found “reasonable cause” to believe that “law enforcement ha[d] failed” or that calling a grand jury was “in the interest of justice.” Id. § 77-18-1.1 (1978). 3. From 1980 to 1990, biennial hearings were still required, but district courts were no longer required to sit for the hearings 6 1 BEALE ET AL., supra ¶ 18, § 1:5, at 22 (referring to Michigan); see also WASH. CONST art. I § 26 (“No grand jury shall be drawn or summoned in any county, except the superior judge thereof shall so order.”); YOUNGER, supra ¶ 19, at 150 (“[After grand jury reform], the grand jury was to appear in Wisconsin only when one had been specially summoned by a judge.”). 7 1 OFFICIAL REPORT OF THE PROCEEDINGS AND DEBATES OF THE CONVENTION ASSEMBLED AT SALT LAKE CITY ON THE FOURTH DAY OF MARCH, 1895, TO ADOPT A CONSTITUTION FOR THE STATE OF UTAH 313 (1898) (statement of Mr. Wells). 7 STATE v. HON. CHRISTIANSEN Opinion of the Court en banc. Id. § 77-10-1(1) (1982). The standard for calling a grand jury also changed, with the new statute stating only that the judges should summon a grand jury if there was “reasonable cause” to do so. Id. 8 4. Finally, in 1990, the legislature established our present system, in which all authority to summon grand juries rests in a single statewide panel of five district judges. 1990 Utah Laws 1484. It also established, for the first time, procedures by which prosecutors could formally request a grand jury. Id. Whether prosecutors request a grand jury or not, however, a grand jury may be summoned only if the panel finds “good cause.” UTAH CODE § 77-10a-2(2)(a), (3). ¶22 Throughout these changes, the role of judges has remained constant. Under every version of Utah’s grand jury laws, from our constitution’s ratification to the present, judges have had the exclusive responsibility to determine whether a grand jury should be summoned. Further, the laws granting judges this responsibility have always given them great discretion in fulfilling it, using broad language like “public interest,” 9 “the interest of justice,” 10 or “good cause to believe a grand jury is necessary” 11 to explain when a grand jury should be summoned. ¶23 Given this unbroken history of judges—and only judges— exercising discretion to determine whether grand juries should be summoned, we readily conclude that the convening of a grand jury in Utah’s system is a judicial function.
¶24 Although the foregoing history is sufficient to persuade us that the panel’s function is judicial, we also note briefly that the panel’s role in this case is consistent with the other roles that judges play in our criminal justice system: the panel operates as a check on prosecutorial power. Convening a grand jury does not merely substitute the jury for a preliminary hearing magistrate with no other consequences. Instead, it allows prosecutors to circumvent a number of protections that our law otherwise affords people suspected of crime. 8 Additionally, the 1980 statute allowed district courts to summon special-purpose grand juries on their own initiative. UTAH CODE § 77-10-1(2) (1982). 9 UTAH CONST. art. I, § 13 (1896). 10 UTAH CODE § 77-18-1.1 (1978). 11 Id. § 77-10a-2(2) (2015). 8 Cite as: 2015 UT 74 Opinion of the Court ¶25 A prosecutor who files a criminal information commences adversary litigation. The defendant then has a right to be informed of the charges and to be represented by counsel. See U.S. CONST. amend. VI; Coleman v. Alabama, 399 U.S. 1, 9–10 (1970) (holding that preliminary hearings are a “critical stage” of the criminal process). The defendant must be allowed to present evidence in her defense, to challenge the admissibility of the prosecution’s evidence, and to cross-examine the prosecution’s witnesses. She also has a right to discovery, and the prosecution must give her all the exculpatory evidence in its possession even if she fails to request it. Strickler v. Greene, 527 U.S. 263, 280–81 (1999) (summarizing prosecutors’ disclosure duties). ¶26 By persuading the panel to summon a grand jury, a prosecutor postpones all of these obligations to defendants until after he obtains an indictment. He has no duty to inform his targets they are under investigation unless he calls them as witnesses. See UTAH CODE § 77-10a-13(4)(b), (4)(c) (explaining the circumstances in which the prosecutor must inform witnesses they are under investigation). Even if he does call them as witnesses, their right to counsel is limited to a right to be advised by counsel while testifying. 12 Defense counsel receive no opportunity to challenge the prosecutor’s evidence or to present their own case to the grand jury, and the prosecutor has no obligation to share evidence with the defense until after the grand jury returns an indictment, Id. § 77-10a13(4)(d). ¶27 Finally, and perhaps most importantly, when a prosecutor persuades the panel to summon a grand jury, the prosecutor gains the power to issue subpoenas in furtherance of the grand jury’s investigation. Id. § 77-10a-13(3)(a). He can issue such subpoenas on his own initiative, without prior approval from the grand jury, id., to compel the production of evidence for which he would otherwise need probable cause and a warrant. 13 And his use of this subpoena power is not limited to the pursuit of an indictment against a particular defendant or even to the investigation of any particular 12 Even the right to counsel’s advice while testifying is not guaranteed by the Federal Constitution, See United States v. Williams, 504 U.S. 36, 49 (1992), but is granted by Utah statute, UTAH CODE § 77-10a-13(4)(a). 13 This investigative use of the grand jury subpoena is common in the federal system. For a discussion of the practice, see Niki Kuckes, The Useful, Dangerous Fiction of Grand Jury Independence, 41 AM. CRIM. L. REV. 1, 35–39 (2004). 9 STATE v. HON. CHRISTIANSEN Opinion of the Court crime: once summoned, a grand jury “may inquire into and indict for any criminal activity occurring within the state.” Id. § 77-10a-3. ¶28 Thus, as is the case with search or arrest warrants, the convening of a grand jury grants powers to law enforcement that it would not otherwise have. And, as is also the case with warrants, our law requires judicial approval before a grand jury may be summoned. The inquiry required for such approval is, admittedly, quite different from the probable cause determination necessary for a warrant. But the purpose of the inquiry is the same: protecting Utahns’ civil liberties from unjustified intrusions. ¶29 We therefore conclude, for reasons both historical and practical, that determining whether a grand jury should be summoned is a judicial function. Our power to issue extraordinary writs therefore allows us to review the panel’s performance of that function.
¶30 In some circumstances, relevant law does not lead a court to a single correct outcome and exclude all other possibilities. Rather, it presents the court with a set of options and trusts the court to determine which option is best suited to the facts at hand. A court making a decision under such conditions is said to have discretion. ¶31 To conclude that the panel abused its discretion, we would have to do more than decide that it failed to choose the best option. Instead, we would have to conclude either (1) that the panel’s decision was not actually among the options the law permitted under the circumstances, or (2) that the process by which the panel reached its decision was incorrect or inadequate. Examples falling in the latter category are decisions influenced by an incorrect understanding of relevant law, 15 decisions that give weight to inappropriate considerations (or that fail to give adequate weight to 14 The analysis in this section is deliberately abstract, and our references to the hearing below are limited to the material contained in the parties’ briefs. We have of course reviewed the entire record, but the question of what the secrecy provisions of the statute actually cover has not been raised or briefed, and we therefore refrain from disclosing details of the panel’s reasoning contained in the record of the hearing below. 15 See State v. Barrett, 2005 UT 88, ¶¶ 15–17 & n.5, 127 P.3d 682. 10 Cite as: 2015 UT 74 Opinion of the Court mandatory considerations), 16 and “arbitrary” decisions “not based on fact, logic, and reason.” 17 ¶32 It is this second category of error that the state alleges took place below. Rather than arguing that the panel had no choice but to summon a grand jury, the state objects to three aspects of the panel’s reasoning. First, the state argues that the panel’s decision was motivated by an error of law—specifically, a misinterpretation of the statutory “good cause” standard that governs requests for a grand jury. Second, the state argues that the panel’s decision rested in part on legally inappropriate factors. And third, the state alleges that the panel acted out of impermissible “personal biases against grand juries.” ¶33 We address each of these arguments in turn. A. The Panel Did Not Misinterpret the “Good Cause” Standard ¶34 The statute allowing the state to seek a grand jury reads as follows: (3) When [a prosecutor] certifies in writing to the supervising judge that in his judgment a grand jury is necessary because of criminal activity in the state, the panel shall order a grand jury to be summoned if the panel finds good cause exists. (4) In determining whether good cause exists under Subsection (3), the panel shall consider, among other factors, whether a grand jury is needed to help maintain public confidence in the impartiality of the