Court Opinion

ID: 9551584
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 18:55:55.916153+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:24:14.485031
License: Public Domain

MOSK, J.
I dissent.
Preliminarily two observations are appropriate. First, it should be clearly understood that we are here concerned with the grand jury’s investigative function, as distinguished from its accusatory role. The latter is an integral part of the criminal judicial process and thus invokes issues of constitutional dimension not apposite in this proceeding.
Second, no party appears to doubt that the superior court judge, in refusing to accept and file the grand jury’s report, was well motivated. *443But as the melancholy lessons of history teach us, the road to censorship is paved with good intentions.
The majority sugar-coat their conclusion by referring to “restricted” court control of grand jury reports (ante, p. 434) and “limited” authority to bury a proposed report (ante, pp. 440, 441). However polite the terminology, the ultimate result is that the grand jury, a duly constituted public agency, is denied the right to file its investigative conclusions with the court, and thus its report must remain forever concealed from the public. Censorship by any other name—restricted or limited—is nevertheless censorship. And censorship by a benevolent censor is no less censorship.
All parties concede there is no statutory authority for the superior court to refuse to accept and file the grand jury report, which by law shall be submitted to the presiding judge of that court. (Pen. Code, § 933.) That should end all judicial inquiry. However, the superior court relies on a vague and undefined inherent power to coerce the grand jury into refraining from reporting on subjects beyond the court’s subjective concept of grand jury limitations. The anomalous result is that the court expands its jurisdiction in order to contract the jurisdiction of the grand jury.
As the majority note, a number of California cases have recognized the grand jury’s investigative role. The case of Monroe v. Garrett (1971) 17 Cal.App.3d 280, 284 [94 Cal.Rptr. 531], is cited (ante, p. 437), but the majority overlook the impact of the very language they quote: “The public may, of course, ultimately conclude that the jury’s fears were exaggerated or that its proposed solutions are unwise. But the debate which reports . . . provoke [can] lead only to a better understanding of public governmental problems.” (Italics added.) The public, not a judge, is to draw conclusions from the grand jury report. The public is to be provoked into debate; the judge is not to prevent debate by suppressing the report.
There are a number of cases which refer to the grand jury as a “judicial body,” and from such references the majority leap to the loose generalization of an 1886 dictum (In re Gannon (1886) 69 Cal. 541, 543 [11 P. 240]) that the grand jury “is under the control of the court....” I cannot believe that the majority really mean to approve absolute court control of a grand jury.
In any event, the cases employed to support the majority’s conclusion *444are inapposite. Gannon was a contempt of court matter. Ex parte Sternes (1889) 82 Cal. 245 [23 P. 38], was a habeas corpus petition involving reasonable or probable cause to hold the petitioner for trial. In re Shuler (1930) 210 Cal. 377, 405 [292 P. 481], used the expression quoted in the majority opinion {ante, p. 438) in a criminal context (“an instrumentality of the courts”), but the same case continued on to declare that the grand jury is charged with an “inquisition into the conduct of citizens and of public institutions and officials, and is to be as fully protected in the exercise of its powers and functions in that regard as the courts themselves.” (Italics added.)
Turpen v. Booth (1880) 56 Cal. 65, 69, involved a claim for civil damages against grand jurors; and in deciding against liability, the court said of grand jurors that “in the performance of such duties the law invests them with judgment and discretion.” McFarland v. Superior Court (1948) 88 Cal.App.2d 153, 160 [198 P.2d 318], involved a writ of prohibition growing out of a manslaughter prosecution; said the court of the grand jury, “It is entitled to the respect and support of the courts.”
Irwin v. Murphy (1933) 129 Cal.App. 713 [19 P.2d 292], not only fails to support the majority, it contains a discussion leading to a directly contrary conclusion. Said the court, at page 717: “Appellant argues that when the commission of a public offense is being inquired into or investigated the power of the grand jury is limited to a definite charge, whether by indictment or otherwise, against the person being investigated; that if the grand jury does not find sufficient evidence to indict, the power of the body terminates and any act thereafter is in excess of jurisdiction. We think this too narrow a construction to be placed upon the powers of a grand jury. As a matter of routine, if nothing further, the power to investigate includes as an integral part thereof the right and duty to report the result of such investigation. ” (Italics added.)
The several authorities from other jurisdictions cited by the majority are not helpful. They originate from states the grand jury traditions of which are so divergent that in totality they prove little other than that the digests will provide a case for virtually any proposition. The fact remains that no California case has held, or suggested, that a right exists in a judge to subject to prior approval the work product of the grand jury.
Indeed, no statute gives to a court the duty or right to investigate or report on county or other governmental affairs. Nevertheless the ability to suppress the whole, or to excise parts, of a report, in effect places with the court responsibility over the investigating and reporting of matters *445entirely extraneous to the judicial function. By authorizing this procedure, the majority thrust the court into the maelstrom of local government controversy. For if the court may suppress reports with which it finds fault, a failure to suppress will be deemed approval.
The proper course is the traditional course. The grand jury may file its report—with the court only because the law directs that to be the resting place—and the grand jury alone assumes the responsibility for content. If there is to be any prior restraint on the grand jury, its work or its work product, the Legislature must authorize it. To date that has not been done.
The majority declare that fears of judicial censorship of grand jury , investigations “are unfounded.” {Ante, p. 441.) While they are understandably reluctant to discuss specifics of the case which gave rise to the problem before us, the majority graphically illustrate, by their conclusion, that there are very real perils to free public communication by a grand jury which has performed its duties.
The grand jury in this case considered operations of the county hospital’s pathology department. The interim report sealed by the judge was the result of this investigation; the inquiry had been prompted by testimony of the sheriff-coroner of the county. The sheriff-coroner recited specific instances of maladministration of the pathology department of the county hospital, and related his apprehensions over the manner in which the alleged irregularities could affect homicide investigations, autopsies, insurance and potential civil liability. The hospital administrator is a county department head appointed by the board of supervisors, and the hospital itself is a revenue collecting agency of the county. Accordingly there can be no doubt that the grand jury’s inquiry was justified under Penal Code section 925 (revenue), section 928 (county officers) and section 933 (county government).
Despite the manifest propriety of the investigation and of the substance of the subsequent report, the superior court judge saw fit to arbitrarily suppress the document. Such result in circumstances as clear as these certainly fails to warrant the sanguinity of the majority in discounting as “unfounded” any fears of judicial censorship.
But if we assume arguendo that the body proposed to report on subjects outside its ken, such a report might reflect upon its source, yet the irrelevance or impropriety of the official document does not justify its suppression. There are traditional and statutoiy boundaries to grand jury *446activities. Penal Code section 939.9 is cited as an example. But if an irresponsible grand jury elects to violate that or any other statutory inhibition, it may suffer penalties the law provides, if any, but it cannot be restrained from so acting.
A legislature may not enact an unconstitutional statute; such an act is wholly beyond its authority and jurisdiction. Yet no court would attempt to prevent the legislative body, by injunction or other order, from proceeding as it sees fit. As an independent public body it has the right to proceed, even in error. A court cannot enjoin the publication of a libel, prevent the erroneous exercise of discretion by a public official, or prohibit the commission of a crime. By parity of reasoning, a court cannot prevent a grand jury from expressing views on subjects the court believes improper, whether by direct order or by suppression of a report. When the court here attempted to do so, it acted on a misguided notion that its general advisory function embraced the role of censor. Yet pertinent code sections refer only to the court’s duty to instruct the grand jurors (Pen. Code, § 914.1), to charge them as to their duties {ibid.), and to advise them when such advice is asked (Pen. Code, § 934). No authorization to tamper with the grand jury report is given to the court. Indeed, under Penal Code section 928, the grand jury is to submit a copy of its report on needs of county officers directly to each member of the board of supervisors. Since such copy does not go to the supervisors through the court, it seems clear that the Legislature anticipated no judicial revision.
Justice Black declared in New York Times Co. v. United States (1971) 403 U.S. 713, 724 [29 L.Ed.2d 822, 830, 91 S.Ct. 2140]: “Secrecy in government is fundamentally anti-democratic, perpetuating bureaucratic errors. Open debate and discussion of public issues are vital to our national health.” Justice Frankfurter wrote in Joseph Burstyn, Inc. v. Wilson (1952) 343 U.S. 495, 532 [96 L.Ed. 1098, 1121, 72 S.Ct. 777]: “To paraphrase Doctor Johnson, if nothing may be shown but what licensors may have previously approved, power, the yea-or-nay-saying by officials, becomes the standard of the permissible.” Or, to quote the blunt characterization by Justice Douglas in Hannegan v. Esquire, Inc. (1946) 327 U.S. 146, 158 [90 L.Ed. 586, 593, 66 S.Ct. 456]: “[A] requirement that literature or art [or public reports] conform to some norm prescribed by an official smacks of an ideology foreign to our system.”
When Plato wrote that poets should be banished from his idyllic republic, he based his magisterial proposal on grounds that have been *447repeated by all the censorial thereafter: the poets taught false ideas. The censors of the world hold their posts as self-appointed guardians of their own particular narrow concept of orthodoxy—in literature, art, and government. The judge in this instance believed he was serving the public interest. But it was his interpretation of the public interest. Obviously the grand jury marched to a different drummer. The juiy conclusions may have been wrong. But they had a right to be wrong. It is axiomatic that in a democratic society an evil is never corrected by suppression or censorship; it is made right by exposure to the marketplace of thought, discussion and controversy.
I would issue the writ.
McComb, J., and Burke, J.,* concurred.
Petitioners’ application for a rehearing was denied February 26, 1975. McComb, J., and Mosk, J., were of the opinion that the application should be granted.

Retired Associate Justice of the Supreme Court sitting under assignment by the Chairman of the Judicial Council.