Court Opinion

ID: 9552464
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 19:11:05.237977+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:26:45.986828
License: Public Domain

HAYS, Justice,
with whom HOLOHAN, Chief Justice, joins, dissenting.
I dissent. At the outset, let me congratulate the author of the majority opinion. What in Marston’s, Inc. v. Strand, 114 Ariz. 260, 560 P.2d 778 (1977), was a specially concurring and dissenting in part opinion has become a portion of the majority opinion in the instant case. The majority seems to find no conflict between its position in Marston’s and its present position, although the author, in specially concurring and dissenting, said:
“My problem arises because I read the majority opinion to say that there are no limits on whose records the Attorney General or the grand jury can take and peruse and that the Attorney General need not consult with the grand jury in any way before issuing a subpoena duces tecum.... ”
114 Ariz. at 266, 560 P.2d at 784.
Even though not specifically overruled, Marston’s has by indirection lost much of its validity.
Let us now address the meaning of A.R.S. § 13-4071(B)(2) which in pertinent part reads:
§ 13-4071. Subpoena; issuance; duty of clerk
B. The subpoena may be signed and issued:
2. By the county attorney for witnesses for the prosecution, or for such other witnesses as the grand jury upon an investigation pending before it may direct, or for witnesses on an indictment or information to appear before the court in *513which the indictment or information is to be tried.
The majority’s interpretation of the foregoing statute is directly opposite that of the dissent. The opinion indicates that subpoenas may, in the prosecutor’s discretion, issue for witnesses for the trial or for any related proceeding in a criminal case.
Nowhere in the statute does the word “discretion” appear as applied to the county attorney, prosecutor or anyone else, nor is there any reference to “trial” as a limitation upon the witnesses which the county attorney can call. We must further ask why the closing phrase “or for witnesses on an indictment or information is to be tried” was included in the statute if the opening phrase “[b]y the county attorney for witnesses for the prosecution,” applies to trial witnesses.
The majority opinion negates the meaning of the words “or for such other witnesses as the grand jury ... may direct .... ” “Such other witnesses” can only relate back to the phrase “[b]y the county attorney for witnesses for the prosecution, ...”
As I read the statute, the prosecutor (county attorney or attorney general, as the case may be) may subpoena witnesses for the prosecution to appear before the grand jury and the grand jury may direct the subpoenaing of other witnesses.
Apparently the only case that has been found which is directly on point is the California Court of Appeals case, Ex parte Peart, 5 Cal.App.2d 469, 43 P.2d 334 (1935). The California statute considered in that case is virtually the same as our A.R.S. § 13-4071(B)(2). The California Court of Appeals, using the same reasoning, reaches a result similar to that of the majority opinion. They too ignore the word “other” and, in fact, in one quotation of the statute by the court, drop it altogether. An error compounded is error just the same.
I am sure it is apparent to the members of the court that the proposed opinion affects not only the operation of the attorney general vis-á-vis the grand jury but will affect the grand jury operations of fourteen county attorneys and their deputies. The fact that this method has been used for many years was not persuasive.
I must further make it clear that I cannot subscribe to the dictum of the majority opinion which speculates to the effect that past federal abuses of the grand jury may have had some influence in making the Arizona grand jury statute more restrictive than the federal law. My own speculations indicate that the federal system, although controlled by the hand of man and therefore not perfect, has been effective and subject to a minimum of abuse.
I dissent.