Court Opinion

ID: 9552259
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 19:07:25.909548+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:25:58.721753
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Moore
specially concurring:
I concur in all that appears in the majority opinion authored by Mr. Justice McWilliams. The general tenor of the dissenting opinion and the nature of the argument made on behalf of Mr. Buchler are such that I feel compelled to direct attention to certain matters not elsewhere mentioned, and to comment on conclusions drawn by the dissent for which I can find no persuasive foundation.
It is conceded that there is respectable authority for the proposition that under a statute like our own “a grand jury continues its operation into a succeeding term of court ‘without an order of court’ to do so.” It is said, however, that in the case under consideration there was an order, but it was an order that the grand jury shall die on a certain day. Careful analysis of the record before us will disclose no such order. The record affirmatively shows exactly the contrary.
On January 19, 1965, at the opening of the January term (or at the close of the preceding term —■ as you prefer) the Honorable Marvin W. Foote, who was the presiding judge, made the following announcement, inter alia:
“One other thing, the grand jury now in session has not completed its work, and it is, therefore, the order of court that it remain in session until it is prepared to report, and the appointment of a grand jury for the year 1965 will be deferred until the present grand jury has completed its investigation and made its report.”
There is nothing whatever in any purported “order” subsequently entered by any judge which in any manner brought about the “death” of the 1964 grand jury *217at any time prior to the date upon which it made its report and was discharged. The order entered as above quoted is very clear, definite and certain. The intent thereof is so apparent that I find no basis therein for the conclusion that the court intended to bring about the “death” of the grand jury, and set in motion the process by which “rigor mortis” took possession of the corpse of that investigating body.
The intent of the court in ordering the continuance of the life of the grand jury beyond the full year for which it was unquestionably selected was to see to it that the very great expenditures of time and substance involved in the long investigations in which it had been engaged should not be forever lost. The order of Judge Foote continuing the life of the grand jury until its work was finished could not be legally nullified by any other judge. In C.R.S. 1963, 37-4-17 and 37-4-18, it is provided that in a multiple judge district, one judge may not vacate or modify a judgment, decree or order made by another judge of the same court. Any orders entered by other judges to which reference is made in the majority opinion were mere surplusage and served no purpose whatever in either continuing the life of the grand jury or in bringing it to an end. No order at any time entered purported to nullify the order of January 19, 1965; and all can be harmonized.
And indeed, the grand jury was not in fact “dead”! There was no “rigor mortis” anywhere in evidence. Pursuant to the court order it remained in session; it completed its work; it returned its indictments; it made its report; it received its pay; and it was discharged on April 5, 1965. By accepting the report and the indictments the court gave conclusive proof of the intent of the order by which the jury was told to stay on the job until its work was done. No new grand jury “for the year 1965” was appointed by the court until after the functioning jury was discharged'—'all as ordered by the court on January 19, 1965.
*218The judges of the subject district court, the district attorney, and the well informed citizens of Arapahoe County recognized the grand jury as an active, functioning arm of law enforcement at all times prior to the date of its official discharge on the date of the acceptance of its report.
The petitioner himself, for a substantial period of time, recognized it as a legally constituted body. Following the return of the indictment against him and on April 22, 1965, in a hearing before Judge Foote, in the presence of the petitioner, his counsel made the following pertinent statement:
“Your Honor, due to all the publicity that has been given to this matter over the past two weeks we feel that it is only fair and proper and just to Mr. Buchler at this time to enter a plea to this charge and to ask for an immediate trial so that he can vindicate himself in the eyes of the people of this county.
* * *
“Your Honor, it is only fair to this man to set this matter for trial immediately, if it meets with the Court’s approval; * * *”
Immediately thereafter an interview was had with Judge Lee, who had theretofore set May 7 as a date for hearing on some motions filed by petitioner. Judge Lee consented to the entry of an order vacating the setting and the motions were withdrawn. Petitioner thereupon entered a plea of not guilty.
His counsel then made the following statement:
“I wonder if the Court would, again through fairness to Mr. Buchler, give us the earliest possible date for trial, this being to the Court? It would not be an extended trial, but probably would extend over a period of maybe five days.”
Some weeks thereafter the petitioner, for reasons not apparent, shifted his position and raised technicalities challenging the legality of the grand jury indictment. No longer did he desire the speedy trial which he pre*219viously had so earnestly demanded! The trial court held the indictment to be good.
Rather than proceed to the speedy trial which he had demanded, and in the event of conviction seek relief by writ of error, the petitioner commenced this original proceeding, which necessarily involved a delay in any decision based upon the evidence.
I am in complete agreement with the position originally taken by Mr. Buchler. I believe, as he insisted, that “it is only fair and proper and just” to him, and I assert that it is only “fair and proper and just” to the people of Colorado, and of Arapahoe County, that the case against the petitioner be tried upon the merits without unnecessary delay. A “cavalierly brush-off” of this whole controversy upon highly technical grounds is decidedly not in the public interest.
There is a presumption of regularity with reference to proceedings before a grand jury. One who seeks to overcome this presumption has the burden to make a far stronger showing than appears in this case. Mulligan v. People, 68 Colo. 17, 189 Pac. 5; People v. Clifford, 105 Colo. 316, 98 P.2d 272. As shown by the majority opinion there is an abundance of authority upholding the legality of the indictment. Arguments based on technical grounds should not be upheld to defeat the determination of disputes upon the merits, and to emasculate the manifest intent of a statute and a trial court’s interpretation thereof if a reasonable construction of the law will result in a determination as to whether facts alleged on one side and denied upon the other are true or false.
While I agree with the statement of Mr. Justice McWilliams to the effect that the grand jury selected in 1964 was “at least a de facto jury,” I go further and assert that it was a “de jure” investigating body until it was officially discharged. The statement in the dissent that: “By the terms of the statute, a grand jury could be a de jure body only during the first term of *220court, possibly a de facto body only during the remainder of that year” amounts to a misinterpretation. The statute itself makes no such statement. No opinion of this Court has so construed the statute, and well reasoned opinions of courts of last resort elsewhere have construed similar language as does the majority opinion. Our interpretation tends to promote decisions based upon substance rather than fanciful legal technicalities.
Moreover our interpretation of the statute is consistent with the general practice of district courts for many years. Numerous occasions have arisen in years past in which a grand jury in a first class county has completed its work during a term of court beyond that in which it was selected. The trial court was familiar with this practice as indicated by the following portion of its order, to wit: “The appointment of a grand jury for the calendar year 1965 will be deferred until the present jury has completed its investigation and report.”
Obviously the grand jury which was continued as an arm of the court was originally selected for the full court year of 1964; it possessed all powers as such until it was discharged, or until its successor was selected and sworn.
The dissent contains the statement that the presiding judge had no authority to extend the life of the grand jury following an en banc session of all three district judges. It is asserted: “The en banc order designating Judge Lee to continue as the presiding judge of criminal matters and in charge of the grand jury was proper.” There was no order designating Judge Lee to continue as “presiding judge over criminal matters.” The full order in that connection reads: “The Honorable Robert B. Lee will continue to be the presiding judge in charge of the grand jury.” It is said that this order “was proper.”
The paradoxical position of the dissent is, on the one hand, that the grand jury was “dead”; the order to con*221tinue it was void. On the other hand the dissent asserts that the order that Judge Lee should continue to be the presiding judge in charge of the grand jury was proper.
The appointment of Judge Lee, admittedly a proper order, necessarily presupposes an existing grand jury over which he should preside. Unquestionably he was not named to preside over the “corpse” of a grand jury.