Court Opinion

ID: 9528543
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 03:41:52.915705+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:26:59.201937
License: Public Domain

COMPTON, Justice,
with whom BURKE, Justice, joins, dissenting.
Delegate Barr proposed to the delegates attending the Alaska Constitutional Convention that there be included in the constitutional provision establishing grand juries that the grand jury’s “power ... to investigate and make recommendations concerning conditions involving the public welfare or safety shall never be suspended.” 1 The proposal was vigorously debated. Delegate Buckalew spoke strongly against it, stating:
[M]y prime objection to this particular amendment is that ... the grand jury might have under investigation the conduct of some particular public office, for example the governor, or any public official, the local tax collector. They don’t have enough evidence to return an indictment but this would give them the power to blast him good and hard, and I think it would lead to all kinds of trouble and I think it is an unheard of provision. The recommendation of the Committee [without the language contained in the proposal] provided that the grand jury could investigate, they could return indictments, but it certainly did not give them the privilege to more or less defame somebody if they did not have quite enough action for a [true] bill. Under this they could discredit him completely, and he would have no way of answering. He might be able to come back and get the report of the grand jury stricken from the records of the court, but the damage would then be done. I think it is extremely dangerous because a citizen would not have any protection. Once it was published the only thing he could do would be to then come in and ask the court to strike portions of it. For that reason I would object to it.
4 Proceedings of the Constitutional Convention 1405.
The contrary view is reflected in the remarks of Delegate Hellenthal, who stated:
[I]t is true there is little protection against what they call ... a runaway grand jury, but in the history of the United States there have been few runaway grand juries, extremely few, and I think that the broad statement of power ... asked for [by the proposal] is proper and healthy.
Id. at 1406.
Despite the risks catalogued by Delegate Buckalew, it is evident that most of Alaska’s founders believed the grand jury’s power to investigate and recommend concerning the public welfare and safety should remain unfettered. Moments after Delegate Buckalew spoke against the proposal, the convention voted, by an over*177whelming margin, to adopt it.2 Thus was born what now appears as the last sentence of article I, section 8 of the Alaska Constitution: “The power of grand juries to investigate and make recommendations concerning the public welfare or safety shall never be suspended.”
Webster’s Third New International Dictionary’s, first definition of “never” is “not ever: not at any time; at no time.” Its second is “not in any degree: not in the least: not in any way: not under any condition.” Its first definition of “suspend” is “to debar or cause to withdraw temporarily from any privilege, office, or function.” Indeed, the next three definitions are similar. Criminal Rule 6.1, adopted by this court pursuant to its rule making authority, not only suspends the power of grand juries to investigate and make recommendations concerning the public welfare or safety, but also permits censorship of a grand jury report generated as result of the exercise of that power before the report is even published.
The court justifies suspension and censorship of a report under the guise of protecting “any person” from improper infringement of their constitutional rights that would result from publication of the report, Rule 6.1(b)(2), or from being adversely reflected on by being “named or otherwise identified” in the report, Rule 6.1(c). It asserts that constitutional justification for the rule is found in the fourteenth amendment to the United States Constitution and in article I, section 7 of the Alaska Constitution, each of which mandate that a person may not be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law. Citing Wisconsin v. Constantineau, 400 U.S. 433, 436-37, 91 S.Ct. 507, 509-10, 27 L.Ed.2d 515 (1971), the court reasons that when the state affects a person’s reputation interest by attaching a “badge of infamy” to that person, the state is depriving that person of life, liberty, or property. Therefore, notice and an opportunity to be heard, i.e. due process of law, are essential. Suspension and censorship of the grand jury report in accordance with Rule 6.1 protects the person’s reputation interest and hence is a constitutionally permissible method of assuring due process of law.
If the court is concerned that a person named or otherwise identified in a report, in a manner that will adversely reflect on that person, be given notice and an opportunity to be heard, a simplification of procedures contained in Rule 6.1(c) and (d) would be adequate to satisfy that concern. However, the prepublication suspension and censorship procedures provided in Rule 6.1 go far beyond satisfying that concern.
I agree with the court that the grand jury is part of the judicial function of government, and that courts have the power to edit grand jury indictments, and hence by implication edit grand jury reports that do not result in indictments. I also agree that courts are not prevented from protecting in some manner against grand jury violations of constitutional rights. However, I cannot agree that courts have the power of pre-publication suspension of grand jury reports or suppression of grand jury reports in whole or in part to protect against a grand jury violation of constitutional rights.
Most of the cases cited by the court to support its argument do not arise in in camera secrecy. An indicted defendant who moves to dismiss the indictment for insufficiency of evidence presented to the grand jury, or for procedural irregularities or misconduct on the part of actors in the grand jury proceedings, is nonetheless a named person who, after the fact, files pleadings which are public documents. That defendant’s forum is a public judicial forum, even though that defendant may suffer a consequential and significant loss of reputation simply by being indicted, and even though the indictment is dismissed and the defendant never again indicted. That defendant’s reputation interest may *178be permanently compromised in the process.
Although “[an] indictment is not a ‘report’ as used in [Criminal Rule 6.1] and Criminal Rule 6,” a grand jury report may include allegations of criminal conduct. Criminal Rule 6.1(a)(2). It must follow from the court’s reasoning that as long as all the required procedures are followed, a person named in a grand jury report may be alleged to have engaged in criminal conduct, yet aside from attaching a denial to the report, that person has no public judicial forum in which to vindicate a compromised reputation interest. Furthermore, Criminal Rule 7(c) provides that when an indictment is found, “the names of all witnesses examined before the grand jury must be inserted at the foot of the indictment, or endorsed thereon, before it is presented to the court.” An indictment is a public record. Criminal Rules 6(l )(2) and (n)(l). Since the public does not know why, and may never be told why a witness was called before a grand jury which indicts a soon to be notorious defendant, that witness’s reputation interest may be severely compromised, yet that witness has no public judicial forum in which to vindicate the compromised reputation interest.
I fail to understand why the reputation interest of some persons is to be protected by Criminal Rule 6.1 procedures, while the same interest of another receives no protection. The court provides no guidance, for it fails to articulate why the reputation interest of some persons is of constitutional magnitude, while the reputation interest of others is not apparently so elevated.
I do not disagree that procedures should be developed which provide “any person who is named or otherwise identified” with notice and an opportunity to be heard for the purpose of presenting his or her side of the story. Nor should persons within that class be limited to those whose reputation interest is compromised in the report of an investigative grand jury.
While I cannot understand why any person named or otherwise identified in an indictment should be treated differently from those “named or otherwise identified” in a grand jury report, it is not this anomaly that causes me to conclude that Criminal Rule 6.1 is inconsistent with article I, section 8 of the Alaska Constitution. The anomaly serves to highlight the failure of the court to utilize the proper analytical framework in determining the issue presented. Assuming that a reputation interest is protected under the Alaska Constitution, a proposition never before articulated by this court, the analysis should take place in the context of two constitutional provisions which are apparently irreconcilable. Unfortunately the focus of the court’s analysis is directed to cases concerning the power of a court to adjudicate issues relating to grand jury proceedings after the fact, when it should be focused on the tension between a constitutionally created judicial body constitutionally empowered to investigate and recommend in the name of public welfare or safety, and the constitutional right of a person not to be “deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.” Alaska Const., art. I, § 7. To resolve this conflict, I believe the court must first determine what is meant by the “anti-suspension” clause of article I, section 8. It chooses not to do so.
The requirement of Wisconsin v. Constantineau, 400 U.S. 433, 91 S.Ct. 507, 27 L.Ed.2d 515 (1971), is that of notice and an opportunity to be heard. The United States Supreme Court does not suggest that the opportunity must be in camera, that it must be afforded before the fact, or that unless supported by substantial evidence, the state may not attach a “badge of infamy” to a citizen without first providing a private judicial forum to adjudicate the citizen’s objections. Yet this court, in adopting Criminal Rule 6.1, has adopted what I believe to be the most restrictive construction of the “anti-suspension” clause imaginable.3 This procedural rule is *179not the least bit deferential to the “anti-suspension” clause. Indeed, it mocks it. If the language of the constitutional provision is not clear enough, the rejection of Delegate Buckalew’s objections to it persuade me that the constitutional debate has both addressed and answered the question whether the “anti-suspension” clause is to be construed restrictively or expansively. Only an expansive construction is consistent with its plain language and the debate and vote. I see no need to resort to proceedings and judicial interpretations regarding the state constitutions of New York and Missouri for illumination, interesting though they may be.
The apparent conflict between article I, sections 7 and 8 of the Alaska Constitution can be reconciled by providing “any person” with notice and an opportunity to be heard during the course of grand jury proceedings, utilizing procedures herein suggested or elsewhere developed. The grand jury, and not the courts, can choose matters on which it reports and recommends, and the manner in which to do so. Its constitutional power shall never be suspended by the overlay of cumbersome procedures which provide for private judicial adjudications and review of whether the report it is to publish adversely reflects on someone, or otherwise allegedly violates his or her constitutional rights. If an aggrieved person disagrees with the report, either because it adversely reflects on that person, or because a constitutional right of that person is allegedly violated, he or she can seek relief in a public judicial forum. Alaska’s constitution will not have been compromised in the process.
In my view Criminal Rule 6.1 violates the “anti-suspension” clause of article I, section 8 of the Alaska Constitution. Therefore I dissent.

. As originally proposed, this provision gave grand juries the power "to investigate and make recommendations concerning conditions detrimental to the public welfare or safety.” 4 Proceedings of the Constitutional Convention 1406 (emphasis added). During the debate being discussed here, the words "detrimental to” were changed to "involving.” Id. This change was suggested by Delegate Hellenthal, who believed that it should be made clear in the constitution that “the investigatory power of a grand jury is extremely broad," and that "a grand jury can investigate anything.” Id. As finally passed, “conditions involving” was itself deleted, leaving only "to investigate and make recommendations concerning the public welfare or safety" as the only constitutional limitation on a grand jury investigation.

. After a roll call vote, the result was "44 yeas, 8 nays, and 3 absent." 4 Proceedings of the Constitutional Convention 1408.

. In the Memorandum of Intervenor Anchorage Daily News, some alternative procedures for harmonizing the conflicting interests are suggested, including retaining most of the present rule, but making proceedings under sections 6.1(c) and (d) open to the public. Another alternative not there suggested, but deserving of consideration, would be to give a person named or *179otherwise identified notice and an opportunity to be heard, including the right to be represented by counsel, in the course of the investigatory grand jury proceeding. While this alternative might slow down the grand jury investigation, it would obviate the need for the cumbersome proceedings presently required. The grand jury itself would determine whether to include, modify or exclude its reference to a person named or otherwise identified. Other less restrictive alternatives come to mind, including requiring the availability of a judge to rule on some issues as they arise, not after a complete report has been prepared, submitted and reviewed.