Court Opinion

ID: 9687942
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 16:54:41.654418+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:18:33.559124
License: Public Domain

Kelly, J.
(dissenting). I am in agreement with my Brother’s statement that we are “confronted with a conflict between the traditional reasons for secrecy and the desirability of discovery,” and are “mindful of the deeply rooted traditions of grand jury secrecy represented throughout the Michigan *70case law,” and would add to these statements that Michigan’s “deeply rooted traditions of grand jury secrecy” are “generally supported by the state courts” — see 20 ALR3d 7, 23.
I do not agree that the fact that “We do not have before us the secrecy provision of the ‘one man grand jury’ statute” in any way justifies the abandonment of our decisions of the past, People v. Pichitino (1953), 337 Mich 90; and in that regard call attention to the following from defendant Calvin Wimberly’s brief:
“Appellee is not unmindful of People v. Pichitino [1953], 337 Mich 90, which indicates that the intent of the legislature is that the 23-man grand jury procedure should retain its common-law secrecy. The language in Pichitino seems to place Michigan in the same position, in this area, as the federal jurisdictions, which have recognized the ‘long established policy that maintains the secrecy of the grand jury proceeding in the federal courts.’ United States v. Procter & Gamble Company (1958), 356 US 677, 682, 683 (78 S Ct 983, 986; 2 L Ed 2d 1077, 1082). This realization, of course, must be the beginning and not the end of our inquiry.”
I quote with approval the following from plaintiff-appellant’s brief:
“[T]he trial court has presumably decided that a defendant is entitled to the minutes of the grand jury which indicted him — not solely for use pursuant to a particularized need such as impeachment or refreshment of a witness as the controlling weight of authority has held until now, but rather for the general discovery purpose of examining the complete body of testimony and then selecting what favors him at trial.
“In this position, the learned trial judge is not sustained by the weight of authority either in this state or in the federal cases.”
*71We grant plaintiff’s request “that the order of the trial court, entered on April 14, 1969, by the Honorable Nathan J. Kaufman be set aside and held for naught.”
Reversed.
Dethmers and Black, JJ., concurred with Kelly, J.