Opinion ID: 2615180
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: constitutionality of drawing grand jurors from a petit jury panel

Text: We think it was with English history in mind [19] that the 1910 Legislative Assembly sought to insure that a member of an indicting grand jury would not be allowed to sit as a petit juror to judge the guilt or innocence of the one indicted. To insure that such an occurrence would not happen, those empowered with the selection of the members of the grand jury were constitutionally mandated to insure that no petit jury member had been on the indicting grand jury. In 1974, Article VII (Amended), Section 5(1)(b), continued this mandate by directing that grand jurors shall be selected by drawing and summoning grand jurors from the regular jury list at any time, separate from the panel of petit jurors. We read this provision to operate in only one direction. A grand juror who sits on an indicting grand jury may not sit on the petit jury which hears the case against the same defendant. This does not mean, ipso facto, that one who has served on a petit jury during the term of a panel may not be selected to sit on a grand jury during the same term. We do not see how the defendant could be prejudiced by the presence of such a juror on the grand jury and believe our analysis to be consistent with the intent and spirit of the constitution. See generally, Comments, Grand Jury Selection: Voter Registration Lists as a Cross Section of the Community, 52 Or.L.Rev. 482 (1973). We find no constitutional infirmity resulting from the selection of the last grand juror from a petit jury panel.