Court Opinion

ID: 9567898
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 19:58:50.510976+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T10:22:22.410514
License: Public Domain

MARTONE, Justice,
dissenting from part A of the opinion and concurring in the judgment.
I agree with Judge Toci. I write only to set forth my reasons for disagreeing with part A of the majority opinion. The majority’s advisory holding that the county attorney has an obligation to communicate the defendant’s request to present evidence to the grand jury is unsupported by the relevant statutes and our cases. A.R.S. § 21-412 provides only that the grand jury may hear evidence at the request of the person under investigation. It says nothing about that request being presented to a prosecutor. A.R.S. § 21-408 de*627scribes the duties of the prosecutor as they relate to the grand jury and nowhere is there any suggestion that the prosecutor is the person to whom an investigated person must make a request to appear.
In contrast, A.R.S. § 21-409 imposes on the court the duty to charge the grand jury “concerning the matters that may be considered by it and concerning the duties of the grand jurors.” It is the court that calls the grand jury. A.R.S. § 21-402. It is the court that appoints the foreman. A.R.S. § 21-409(D). Thus, if an investigated person wants to communicate with the grand jury, he or she should do so through the court that convened it. It is odd to put that duty on the investigated person’s adversary, the prosecutor.
So, for example, in State v. Just, 138 Ariz. 534, 539, 675 P.2d 1353, 1358 (App.1983), the defendant submitted his request to present evidence under A.R.S. § 21-412 “to the grand jury.” The prosecutor’s objection was overruled and Judge Broomfield ruled that the matter was to be decided by the grand jury-
In Crimmins v. Superior Ct., 137 Ariz. 39, 668 P.2d 882 (1983), we did not address the question of whether the prosecutor had a duty to communicate the defendant’s request to the grand jury. Only Justice Feldman did by a specially concurring opinion upon which today’s majority relies as though it were the opinion of the court. The majority says that without imposing this burden on the prosecutor, “A.R.S. § 21-412 and Rule 12.6 are rendered meaningless.” Ante, at 625, 944 P.2d at 1239. This is hardly the case. If the defendant here wanted to present evidence to the grand jury under the statute or rule, all he had to do, when he got no answer from the prosecutor, was to send his request directly to the grand jury through the office of the judge who called the grand jury under AR.S. § 21-402 and whose obligation it was to charge it under A.R.S. § 21-409.
I thus concur in the judgment and dissent from part A of the majority’s opinion.