Opinion ID: 1384669
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Saga of the Campbell County Grand Jury Circa 1985

Text: Not completely incomparable with the Johnson County wars of the same general area of nearly a century before, the Campbell County grand jury accommodates an interesting legal and historical perspective. On June 10, 1985, James R. Murray, Campbell County Attorney, filed a motion to convene a grand jury, in general substance stating: [2] 1. The Campbell County Sheriff's Department has been conducting an undercover controlled substance investigation for the past nine (9) months. 2. In excess of seventy cases are presently ready for prosecution presentation. 3. The investigation has revealed several controlled substance distribution schemes which will require the investigative power of a Grand Jury to complete the investigation. 4. The needs of the community dictate that a Grand Jury should be convened to investigate professional and official corruption. Accommodating this motion, and accompanied by a hearing which was apparently not reported and certainly not transcribed, the order convening the grand jury stated: The State of Wyoming's motion to convene a Campbell County Grand Jury having come before the Court, the Court having received sworn testimony in support of the motion and being otherwise advised in the premises; IT IS THEREFORE ORDERED AND ADJUDGED the: 1. The Clerk of the Court pursuant to 7-5-102, W.S. shall summon sixteen (16) prospective Grand Jurors. 2. The prospective Grand Jurors shall report to the Clerk of District Court, Campbell County Courthouse, at 1:30 P.M. on the 21st day of June, 1985. 3. The State's motion and the hearing on the State's motion shall be sealed until further order of the Court. DONE this 10th day of June, 1985. Details of the initiating event, records or transcripts (never produced), and the substance of the instructions to the grand jury, were not in the record and were unknown to anyone except the trial judge, the county attorney, and the membership of the grand jury, until inquiry by this writer as a member of the Supreme Court revealed some aspects of the minimal documentation in May of 1987, when preparation for this opinion was underway. However, in sequential relationship to the events that occurred, undisclosed to defendants and their counsel, the grand jury instructions directed: With respect to those accused of crime you will hear only one side of a case. It is not your duty to decide the guilt or innocence of the accused. You are an investigative and accusatorial body. As to the degree of evidence sufficient to warrant the return of an indictment; I instruct you that an indictment should be found when all of the evidence before you taken together, if unexplained or if uncontradicted, would in your judgment warrant a conviction by a trial jury. If the evidence fails to establish the degree of evidence sufficient to warrant the return of an indictment, then you must refuse to return a `true bill'. No public purpose would be served by indicting a person when it appears to you that the evidence is not sufficient to sustain a conviction. Unjust or unfounded indictments should not be returned against anyone. You must be fair and just in your deliberations to the best of your ability and understanding. Your oath requires that you not indict any person through malice, hatred or ill-will. Nor should you fail to indict any person through fear, favor, affection, reward or hope of reward. You must be guided by an impartial spirit, free from personal, social, racial, religious bias or feeling. You are cautioned that rumor is unreliable, it must be entirely disregarded. You must be cautious in receiving hearsay testimony; that is to say testimony of a witness as to what someone else said, unless you are satisfied that the source is reliable. You are an investigative body and hearsay often provides the means and direction of furthering your investigation. No person may be compelled to be a witness against himself unless he has been furnished a grant of immunity. You should cautiously weigh testimony which is received under a grant of immunity. The County and Prosecuting Attorney and the court will resolve any questions concerning immunity.       The County and Prosecuting Attorney is by law the representative of the State of Wyoming in all criminal prosecutions. It is his duty to be present with the Grand Jury in its room, to present evidence, to examine the witnesses and to give advice upon any matter of law which may be raised. You should follow the instructions of the Prosecutor on matters of law unless you are instructed to the contrary by the Court. You are, however, the sole judges of the facts and neither the Prosecuting Attorney nor any of his assistants will influence you in your decision as to whether an indictment should be approved. Statements by the County and Prosecuting Attorney or any of his assistants on matters other than the law are not evidence and should be disregarded unless supported by sworn testimony and exhibits brought before you. In addition to the Prosecuting Attorney and witnesses, there may be also present in the Grand Jury Room a court reporter who will record the testimony of the witnesses.  (Emphasis added.) Details generally about what occurred must be based in part on unanswered assumptions in briefs and general information, since it cannot even be told for sure at what times a court reporter was actually present, but it is clear that transcripts were made of only selected testimony in the later investigatory stages, and the existence of these transcripts was never made known to defendants' counsel. The grand jury met for three days, June 24, 25, and 26, 1985, and rendered indictments against 67 individuals, encompassing about 237 separate criminal counts. No transcribed record is available as to what witness or witnesses testified to or how the indictments were supported in evidence. It is assumed from a multitude of comments made in its briefs, as well as generally considered in public information and not denied in any response, that these indictments were obtained by the testimony of the deputy sheriff testifying about and summarizing investigative reports of an undercover agent who was then also employed in Campbell County as a deputy sheriff. This undercover agent, David Michael Lauck, who used the undercover name of Dale Lucas, although available, for some reason was not called to appear and testify before the grand jury and only testified at the individual trials held in the fall. [3] Seven appeals resulted from the initial 67 indictments, and two subsequently occurred in the continuing activities which lasted through the end of the year and into January of 1986. After the initial three-day course of indictments, the grand jury pursued a course of investigative interviews, subpoenaed witnesses, some as targets, some stated not to be targets, some granted immunity, some not, others called for an apparent purpose of perjury charges. An additional total of 27 indictments were apparently then made, including some controlled-substance charges, perjury complaints, and concluding with gambling charges through to a 13-page final report filed January 31, 1986, which, in addition to a recommendation of an annual session, also included a note for this court: 9. The Wyoming Supreme Court should review its policies on the use of illicit drugs and illegal activities by public officials who are attorneys to determine their fitness for continued professional practice. In historical perspective, the reaction of the community to the grand jury activity resulted in the 1986 Fall primary election defeat of the long-time sheriff who had been in the forefront of the activity, by an adverse vote of 6,387 to 3,087, and of the county and prosecuting attorney by a similar vote of 5,947 to 3,322. Not immunized from grand jury subpoena or target consideration were five or six members of the legal profession, of whom none were indicted in the Campbell County grand jury sessions. The number of trials is not established in appeal records, except that nine appeals to this court were filed, including: Brown v. State, Wyo., 738 P.2d 1092 (1987); Gist v. State, Wyo., 737 P.2d 336 (1987); Heggie v. State, No. 86-22 (dismissed August 5, 1987); Sword v. State, Wyo., 746 P.2d 423 (1987); Deckert v. State, No. 86-34 (dismissed July 27, 1987); Lee v. State, Wyo., 743 P.2d 296 (1987); Burke v. State, Wyo., 746 P.2d 852, (1987); and Kortz v. State, Wyo., 746 P.2d 435 (1987). Three cases have thus far been reversed, and three of the accused received commutation from the Governor, including Hennigan, who is the defendant here. Two of the commutations effectuated dismissals of appeals; Hennigan did not. At this time, three of the nine appeals remain for decision of this court. The character of the facts and records upon which post-indictment motions were considered, reviewed by certiorari in this court, and finally on appeal, is demonstrated from hearing exchanges and briefing comment. Exceptionally noteworthy is the fact that a court reporter was actually present at least part of the time, and perhaps all the time, in accord with the original court instructions, none of which information was ever made available to appellants. It is this status of disinformation that was reflected in the post-indictment, pre-trial motion hearing to dismiss the indictments. [MR. GALLIVAN, University of Wyoming law professor serving as one of the counsel for defendants  oral argument to the trial court on the motion to dismiss indictment:] What I'm doing now I think is, having just received the brief very recently of the county attorney, I am doing orally what would probably be done by way of a reply brief, and some form of contrast between the brief of the defendants in this case and the brief of the county attorney. At the outset, normally one would be expected to be able to say that these are the statements of the facts, and this is what we're talking about. I think that a large part of the problem of the defendants in this case revolves around the fact that we know nothing about the proceedings except what is reflected in the court file, the court's recorded instructions. We know nothing about the number of investigations, except what we read in the newspaper. We do not know how long any of these things went. We assumed from what we did know that they had rather rapid review of the cases. We stated that we believed that these indictments were returned solely on the basis of hearsay by deputy sheriffs, as that has not been denied, and, if anything, it's been confirmed by the county attorney's brief.  We believe, but we do not know, that none of the proceedings were recorded, and I think that is conceded by the county attorney's brief without saying so much in words. [Emphasis added.] THE COURT:    I'm going to assume, as you do for the purpose of these arguments, that there was, as you put it, a rapid review of the cases. It was a very short period of time. I'm also going to assume that it was based, if not entirely, almost entirely at least on hearsay testimony  well, I guess I should not say on hearsay testimony. My belief is that it might have been the testimony of an undercover officer that participated in the alleged offenses. And if that is the case, I suppose it probably wouldn't be hearsay. So I think it's probably one of those two, although I know the state's brief talks a great deal about hearsay, and I would say that is also my understanding. And I'm going to assume for purposes of this argument, that none of the testimony upon which these indictments were based, although I understand there has been some recorded testimony since then, but that none of the testimony upon which these indictments were based was reported testimony.