Opinion ID: 1442633
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: Quashing Grand Jury Independence

Text: In its third assignment of error, the State suggests that the district court's finding that the prosecution quashed the grand jury's independence by stifling grand jurors' questions and by providing inaccurate legal advice cannot support the district court's dismissal of the indictments. Although the State concedes that the better practice would have been to allow answers to many of the grand jurors' inquiries, it contends that the majority of instances in which the grand jurors were denied answers to their questions did not involve the ten alleged victims on whom the State intended to proceed to trial. If the grand jury is to fulfill its purpose of acting as a bulwark between those sought to be charged with crimes and their accusers, it must be permitted to investigate and act as an informed body throughout the entire course of the proceedings. See Sheriff v. Frank, 103 Nev. at 165, 734 P.2d at 1244. At the same time, the grand jury, by statute, can receive none but legal evidence, and the best evidence in degree, to the exclusion of hearsay or secondary evidence. NRS 172.135. Therefore, if the integrity of an indictment is to be preserved, grand jurors must, when appropriate, be steered away from certain areas of inquiry. It is incumbent on prosecutors who make presentations before grand juries to be adequately informed of the facts and to have conducted sufficient legal research to enable them to properly inform the grand jury on the law and to assist it in its investigation. See United States v. Sousley, 453 F. Supp. 754, 758 n. 1 (W.D.Mo. 1978). Here, no less than in Frank, the Assistant District Attorney who made the initial presentations to the grand jury impaired its independence to some degree by curtailing relevant questioning. Several questions asked by the grand jurors were relevant to the crimes charged. After receiving testimony about an alleged victim and her classmate being anally assaulted, a grand juror asked if the classmates were together when assaulted. At another time, an alleged victim's mother was asked if the touching of the child on the bottom and vaginal areas occurred in a private area of the school. At still another time, a grand juror inquired whether a teacher was aware of an alleged assault on one child that occurred at the school. In each instance, the deputy district attorney prevented the witness from answering these relevant inquiries. Although preventing answers to these questions was not proper, it happened only in the initial grand jury presentations and the matters inquired into were not so critical as to affect the grand jury proceedings at which they occurred. Further, the restriction of grand jury inquiries was the action of just one deputy district attorney. Subsequent presentations by other prosecutors in this case were made without impairing the grand jury's independence and while adhering to the statutory constraints governing what evidence the grand jury should receive. Although the restriction on the grand jurors asking several questions in the initial grand jury proceedings was improper, we conclude that the district court was incorrect in finding that such moderate restriction thwarted the grand jury's independence and was so prejudicial as to warrant the dismissal of the indictments returned during these proceedings.