Court Opinion

ID: 9570828
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 20:26:47.939591+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:18:33.701832
License: Public Domain

Gunderson, J.,
dissenting:
Perhaps with the highest motives, the District Attorney’s staff placed before the Grand Jury a mass of pseudo evidence, obscuring that the case against Commissioner Franklin rests on the credibility of bar owner John Tocco and fugitive convict James Kronke. It was within the Grand Jury’s province to determine their testimony v/as not credible, and therefore not probable cause to prosecute Mr. Franklin. State v. Fuchs, *39078 Nev. 63, 68, 368 P.2d 869, 871 (1962); In re Oxley and Mulvaney, 38 Nev. 379, 385, 149 P. 992, 994 (1915); Ex Parte Wm. Willoughby, 14 Nev. 451, 452 (1880). And the Grand Jury might well have so decided, if it had been permitted to evaluate the testimony of Tocco and Kronke on its own merits, without illusory “corroboration.”
The majority opinion omits to discuss this problem, which I consider the most disturbing aspect of the case before us. Thus, I have no idea how, if at all, the majority would justify “witnesses” like Lt. James Smith, of the Las Vegas Police Department. His testimony is that he got “involved in this controversy” on June 20, when he was “contacted by Mr. Bruce Greenhalgh, who is the Chief Investigator for the Attorney General’s Office.” Although Smith did not state explicitly what Greenhalgh said, that was indicated by Smith’s testimony concerning a meeting later that day with Greenhalgh, Attorney General List, and Chief Deputy Attorney General Gary Logan, in Logan’s Las Vegas office.1 By this testimony, the District Attorney’s staff evidently sought to convince the Grand Jury that the Attorney General himself as well as his top assistants took Tocco’s accusation seriously, and that therefore the Grand Jury should also. From Smith’s only other testimony, concerning a visit Commissioner Hank Thornley made to Frankie’s Bar, the District Attorney’s staff apparently wished the Grand Jury to draw the highly speculative inference that something sinister was indeed transpiring concerning bars on Charleston Boulevard, in which Mr. Franklin, as a member of the City Commission, was probably implicated.
*391To take other examples, Attorney General List, Rex Bell, and Gary Logan also testified about their investigatory efforts, which so far as I can see produced no evidence whatever against Mr. Franklin. Their testimony, like that of Lt. Smith, really showed nothing except that Tocco had accused Franklin and that List and others took him seriously.
Deputy District Attorney Leon Simon, who represented the District Attorney at oral argument before this court, acknowledged that such testimony would not be admissible as part of the State’s case in chief. Another deputy, who appeared with Mr. Simon, seemed to believe that anything said or done outside a defendant’s presence is proper evidence, except that a witness may not recite explicitly what another person said. Of course, the latter deputy’s notion conflicts with the hearsay rule as understood since Wright v. Tatham, 112 Eng. Rep. 488 (1837). See also: J. Ball, Conduct as Hearsay, 41 L.A. Bar Bui. 558 (1965-66). Moreover, whatever may be the status of Wright v. Tatham’s doctrine in Nevada (consider NRS 51.035-45), I trust my brethren agree that irrelevancy remains a ground for excluding testimony concerning unproductive police activity. If we permit prosecutors to present matter that remote from the central issues in criminal cases, the state will need to quadruple its judicial forces.
This is not a case involving a negligible amount of improper evidentiary matter, inadvertently placed before the Grand Jury. (If it were, I would view the matter as does my brother Zenoff.) Here, to assure an indictment the Grand Jury might otherwise have refused, the District Attorney’s staff called a number of witnesses whose testimony was either largely or totally inadmissible, and necessarily prejudicial. In so doing, I feel, the prosecution invaded the province of the Grand Jury. Hence, I would grant appellant’s petition, and require the District Attorney’s staff to resubmit the case correctly, either to a new Grand Jury or to a magistrate. As the Supreme Court of Hawaii has said:
“We cannot second guess the grand jury by assuming that it would have returned an indictment against [Mr. Franklin] even if the character of the proceedings had been other than what it was.” State v. Joao, 491 P.2d 1089, 1091 (Hawaii 1971).

Smith testified that he tried, unsuccessfully, “to acquire $10,000 in counterfeit money from the Secret Service for Mr. Greenhalgh to use as bait money, and I brought with me a transmitter and receiver, equipment to wire a man.” He met Mr. Greenhalgh, Attorney General List, and Chief Deputy Attorney General Gary Logan in the latter’s Las Vegas office, and sat there “while they discussed the situation, and Mr. Tocco showed up,” whereupon Tocco supposedly “related the situation.” Finally, “[a]s a result of events that happened, the Attorney General elected to call the Clark County District Attorney’s Office, and once their investigation was commenced there was no need for me and I left.”
Smith then went on to testify that the following day, about 9:05 A.M., he “was going out West Charleston to make a right-hand turn on Rancho Road to go out Tonopah Highway.” By chance, Smith said, he saw Commissioner Hank Thornley entering Frankie’s Bar on West Charleston. (Former City Commissioner Phil Mirabelli, who opposes the transfer of Tocco’s liquor license, has an interest in Frankie’s.) About 40 minutes later, again by chance, Smith said he “saw Mr. Thornley leaving” shortly before a City Commission meeting that was scheduled for 10:00 A.M.