Court Opinion

ID: 9695287
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 18:14:41.080117+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:20:10.667707
License: Public Domain

ON REHEARING
CATES, Presiding Judge.
Counsel for respondent presses the pertinency of State v. Revere, 232 La. 184, 94 So.2d 25.
There the trial court had quashed an indictment because an investigator assigned to the district attorney’s office had gone into the grand jury proceedings to operate a recording machine. The Supreme Court of Louisiana affirmed, holding that the presence of a monitor or operator had not been authorized by statute. The court followed the minority view set out in 4 A.L.R.2d 392.
This holding is in conflict with Blevins v. State, 68 Ala. 92 (3) where there is strong dictum against the presence of special prosecutors in the grand jury room. See also, King v. State, 208 Ala. 152, 93 So. 855. But in Blevins, supra, error was harmless. See Rush v. State, 253 Ala. 537, 45 So.2d 761 (bailiff).
Gore, supra, rests on the authority of an express statute authorizing the presence of a stenographer. Here the District Attorney is a person expressly authorized to present evidence to the grand jury. That he uses a machine to preserve his work product and improve his recollection is not to be condemned so long as the recordings are not bruited about.
We do not think even the strictures of Revere would apply here because no person unauthorized to be present operated the recorder. We decide no more than this.
The application for rehearing is therefore overruled.
Opinion extended; application overruled.
All the Judges concur.