Court Opinion

ID: 9530375
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 03:59:22.492832+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:28:05.618731
License: Public Domain

LENT, J.,
dissenting.
The majority orders dismissal of the alternative writ of mandamus issued by this court pursuant to Article VII (amended), section 2, of the Oregon Constitution. I must dissent because I believe the majority has misconceived the question of law presented by the allegations of the alternative writ as admitted by defendants’ demurrer.1
The majority states that it is given that direct appeal in a criminal case is "generally regarded” as a plain, adequate and speedy remedy in the ordinary course of the law. Since the denial of a preliminary hearing is a ruling which may be "reviewed” on direct appeal according to the majority, it follows that "in the absence of special circumstances” relators have such a plain, adequate and speedy remedy.
The majority then proceeds to miscast the relators’ position so as to make it appear that the issue presented is whether mandamus will lie to review *271an order of the trial court denying discovery. That simply is not the issue. Rather the issue presented by this proceeding is whether, in the circumstances established by the writ and demurrer thereto, if relators Eire not afforded a post-indictment heEiring akin to that commonly known as a "preliminary hearing,” the state, acting through the defendants, will have denied relators due process and equal protection of the laws.2
Under the law of this state the district attorney may institute felony proceedings against a defendant in at least two different ways. He may charge the defendant on a district attorney’s information filed in circuit court if, Eifter a preliminary hearing before a magistrate, the defendant has been held to answer upon a showing of probable cause that a crime punishable as a felony has been committed and that the defendant committed it. Or Const., Art VII (Amend.), § 5(5). On the other hand, the district attorney may take the matter to the grand jury which may return an indictment charging the defendant with a crime when all of the evidence before the grand jury is such as would in the judgment of the grand jury warrant a conviction by a trial jury if the evidence is unexplained or uncontradicted. Or Const., Art VII (Amend.), § 5(3); ORS 132.380 and 132.390. More simply put, the district attorney may elect whether the state shall initiate prosecution by way of a preliminary heEiring or by way of the grand jury.
In this case the state, through the defendant district attorney, elected to proceed and accuse relators by way of indictment; consequently, relators were not afforded that preliminary heEiring which is available to any defendant against whom the district attorney elects to proceed by district attorney’s infor*272mation. The indictment charged relators with the crime of Unauthorized Use of Vehicle, ORS 164.135.
The name of a certain witness appeared on the face of the indictment as having been a witness examined before the grand jury, ORS 132.580, and as being a co-owner of the vehicle. Police reports made available to relators’ counsel indicated that this was the witness who would give evidence essential to the prosecution on the element of want of authority to use the vehicle. Counsel's investigator attempted to interview that witness, who refused to talk about the case.
Relators then moved to dismiss the indictment and, alternatively, should that motion not be allowed, moved for an order allowing relators a "preliminary hearing.” Defendant judge of the circuit court denied the motions.
The majority’s proposed dismissal of the writ is premised upon the existence of a plain, adequate and speedy remedy by way of appeal if relators are convicted. That assumes that on appeal relators will receive a decision as to whether they have been denied due process and equal protection of the laws by reason of being denied a preliminary hearing because the district attorney exercised his unfettered discretion to proceed against relators by indictment rather than district attorney’s information. I daresay they will not get such a decision.
Upon appeal the relators will presumably assign as error the denial of their motions. The appellate court will inquire only as to whether it is error to deny a post-indictment motion for a "preliminary hearing” and, holding that there need not be a preliminary hearing where the grand jury has indicted, will find no error. Even if we assume that the appellate court would find error, I do not see how the relators will be able to show that the error contributed to their convictions.
*273The question presented as to the denial of due process and of equal protection of the laws by a criminal procedure system that allows the prosecutor unfettered discretion to decide which criminal defendants shall have a preliminary hearing and which shall not is not a trivial or frivolous question. The California Supreme Court has squarely held such a system to work a denial of equal protection of the laws. Hawkins v. Superior Court, 22 Cal3d 584, 150 Cal Reptr 435, 586 P2d 916 (1978). I quote from the summary, 22 Cal3d at 584, because I find it to be accurate:
"At their arraignment following grand jury indictment for conspiracy (Pen. Code, § 182, subd. 4), and grand theft (Pen. Code, § 487, subd. 1), defendants each pleaded not guilty. Their motion for a dismissal, or in the alternative, a postindictment preliminary hearing, was denied.
"The Supreme Court issued a peremptory writ of mandate directing the trial court to grant defendants’ request for a postindictment preliminary hearing, with the prosecution refiling the indictment as a complaint. The court held that, under the equal protection clause of the California Constitution there was no compelling state interest to justify the denial of fundamental rights such as counsel, confrontation, and a hearing before a judicial officer, to the class of defendants against whom the prosecution chose to proceed by indictment. The court noted that the grand jury, in its role of accuser, has largely become an arm of the prosecutor.”
The California court noted that under California law the defendant charged by information becomes entitled to an "impressive array” of procedural rights not available to the defendant charged by indictment.3 The same thing is true under Oregon law.
*274A defendant charged by information is afforded a preliminary hearing before a neutral magistrate. At the hearing the defendant will be represented by counsel. The defendant may confront and cross-examine the witnesses called by the state. He may subpoena witnesses and present their evidence. He has a right to testify in his own behalf. None of those rights are available to a defendant against whom the district attorney elects, for reasons of his own, to proceed by indictment.4
The Michigan Supreme Court in People v. Duncan, 388 Mich 489, 201 NW2d 629 (1972) reached the same result as the California Court by a different route. The Michigan Court exercised its supervisory power to order that lower courts afford a post-indictment hearing to defendants who had been deprived of a preliminary hearing.
Those cases are, of course, not binding upon this court, and it might well be that we would not come to the same conclusion upon constitutional or other grounds. If I were at all convinced that relators in the case at bar had any way to get a decision upon direct appeal upon these constitutional issues, I would not write this separate opinion. Of course, the majority could dispel my suspicion that the issue will not be reached by making it clear that an appeal will present that issue to be decided by the court of direct appellate jurisdiction. The majority does not satisfy me in that respect.
I dissent.

 This dissent is from the action of the majority in holding that appeal is an adequate remedy. I express no view on the merits of relators’ claims of unconstitutionality of the Oregon dual prosecution system.

 Amendment XIV to the United States Constitution provides in pertinent part:
"* * *; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”

 A case comment on Hawkins v. Superior Court, 22 Cal3d 584, 150 Cal Reptr 435, 586 P2d 916 (1978), in 13 Suffolk L Rev 1482 (1979) collects other writing in legal periodicals in the last decade. A particularly interesting article suggesting constitutional infirmity in the dual prosecution system is that by Alexander and Portman: Grand Jury Indictment Versus Prosecution by Information — An Equal Protection-Due Process Issue, 25 Hastings Law J 997 (1974).

 Oklahoma provides by statute the right of the defendant to have a post-indictment "preliminary hearing.” Okla Stat. Ann. tit. 22, § 524.