Court Opinion

ID: 9722465
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 09:34:09.904741+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:24:35.854057
License: Public Domain

COAKLEY, J.
I concur in the result, without disagreeing with People v. Flores, 276 Cal.App.2d 61 [81 Cal.Rptr. 197]. While I consider it the safer and better practice, and the one which I believe is employed in most counties, i.e., to permit the presence of only one witness at a time in the grand jury room, I question whether Penal Code section 939 requires it. If the Legislature had intended to forbid the presence at a grand jury session of more than one witness at a time, it seems to me that it would have used the singular, rather than the plural, of the word “witness.” It is not difficult to conjure situations wherein the presence of more than one witness in the grand jury room would greatly serve the convenience of the jurors and permit questions of more than one witness present, for purposes of clarification, without prejudice to the rights of a defendant. This may be why the Legislature-used the term, “witnesses.” Accordingly I would leave it to the Legislature or to the Supreme Court to make the clarification if either disagrees with the interpretation in Flores, supra.