Court Opinion

ID: 9570827
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 20:26:47.935524+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:18:33.667293
License: Public Domain

Zenoff, J.,
concurring:
The thin requirements of probable cause to bind an accused over for trial have troubled me, yet because this court has often reaffirmed those simple standards it seems fruitless to disagree. Nevertheless, I am constrained to observe that a man’s reputation was once so respected that the devices of the preliminary hearing and grand jury were instituted to give protection against weak or groundless accusations. Proof positive was necessary for an accusation to be sufficiently strong to bring the accused to trial on the premise that a man should not be put to shame or the expense of defending himself needlessly.
In this case the accusation consists practically of bar owner Tocco’s word against that of a public official. The $10,000 was not borrowed or otherwise obtained by Tocco, no sums were paid to anybody at anytime before the application was denied. Of the parade of witnesses only one bore directly on the accusation and that was the testimony of an admitted parole jumper from a foreign state who “happened” to be buying a drink in the bar and said he overheard a conversation between people he did not know. Furthermore, he was a stranger in the community.
The past decisions of this court that have approved such low quality evidence solely compels my concurrence.