THE SACRAMENTO Z - Frontpage

Our Not-So-Grand Juries

Where the sun don't shine—
too often

Lessons from Ferguson:

If events of the past weeks serve only as a flashpoint in the wars of racist authority and the passions of a besieged people demanding to be free, then one of the most important and powerful instruments we have for the preservation of our democracy, one designed to insure it remains in the hands of the people, is likely to be lost entirely.

For the past century our grand jury system has been in a phase of devolution, some of its considerable powers neglected or forgotten, others deliberately compromised or removed until only a shell remains of its once formidable assurance that justice in America would be fair and equal, and all Americans protected from its excesses.

Currently, most adult Americans, even those... generally well-informed about their government and its activities, know little about grand juries.

— Susan Brenner

It should come as no surprise that a grand jury can only be as knowledgeable about its own purposes and powers as the ordinary citizens in the local community from which its membership is drawn. The layperson character of a grand jury was historically intended to make this body as generally responsive to the community as it can be, aware of local issues of greatest concern and need of attention, and charged with keeping their district as safe and accommodating for all its citizens as is humanly possible.

If the people of our communities are ignorant about the roles, functions and historical purposes of the grand jury, as the quote above by professor Susan Brenner suggests in her paper published in the Virginia Journal of Social Policy and the Law in 1995 (" "The Voice Of The Community"), then it follows that grand juries will be equally ignorant about the nature of their responsibilities and how to discharge them. Such ignorance has serious consequences for every American.

It also means that grand juries will have a tendency to rely upon others to tell them how to go about doing their job. The remedy, however, is not to become more dependent on others for that information , but rather to become more educated and less ignorant.

As the events of the past few weeks in Ferguson and New York reveal, the focus has been almost entirely on specifics such as racism, police conduct, and to a lesser extent the manipulations of prosecutors' offices and their managment of grand juries.

Little attention has been given, during these days of shame, to the grand jury system itself. Yet a public more educated on the subject would have quickly realized that the grand juries themselves, had they been vigorous, independent and fully empowered institutions, not only might have responded more properly in deciding the matters put before them, but might have prevented them from happening in the first place.

For example, grand juries have long possessed the power to act on their own initiative. There is nothing to prevent them from working proactively in examining the sources of conflict and discord in their communities. Nor do they require the permission of prosecutors or other public officials to do so. Yet two of the primary instruments for doing this, presentment and investigative initiative, have fallen to neglect or been constrained by prosecutors who would much prefer grand juries be passive entities, acting only in ways preferred and prescribed by their own offices.

in United States v Williams [SC 1992], "the Williams court held that the grand jury is a distinct entity, an institution not "assigned...to any of the branches described in the first three Articles' of the United States Constitution."

That observation by the Supreme court is absolutely critical to the success of our grand jury system. For grand juries are not only responsible for looking after the health and safety of our communities, but equally charged with insuring that the insitutions of government do not themselves become the source of threats to the well-being of the communities they are sworn to protect.

GRANDJURY