Sacramento Politicians Seek to Stifle Grand Juries

Mention the words grand jury and some elected officials get as nervous as a long-tailed cat in a roomful of rocking chairs.  In all fairness, when I served on our Marin County Grand Jury, I found most of our local government officials to be open and gracious in being interviewed.  There were a few, however, that were less than pleased to have 19 dedicated private citizens poking around in their backyards.

It seems that some of our state lawmakers want to make life difficult for grand juries in counties throughout California.  Their instrument of choice is AB 622 Civil Grand Juries.  Evidently, our elected representatives in Sacramento have been hard at work on more than faux budgets.  AB 622 easily passed the Assembly in June and moved on to the State Senate. It now sits in the Senate Appropriations Committee.

The proposed legislation would impose unnecessary and potentially costly restrictions on investigations conducted by our grand juries.  As a point of clarification, reference is to civil grand juries, not criminal grand juries.  Specifically, the proposed law would require anyone being interviewed under oath to have the opportunity to have counsel present, at taxpayer expense, with an additional cost conservatively estimated at $1.4 million per year.  The law does restrict the attorney’s conduct, with any violations reported to the state bar.  However, in order to have a record of any violations, a court reporter would be needed at each interview, costing another $1.2 million.  In addition to the costs, it would turn routine interviews into adversarial hearings.

Is this necessary?  No. Currently, grand juries maintain confidentiality when interviewing individuals as part of an investigation.  The names of individuals that are interviewed are never divulged.  They do not appear in any grand jury report.  To avoid being influenced unduly by any one individual’s prejudice or vengeance, juries must validate all information obtained, usually by at least three sources.  Whenever a staff member of a particular department is interviewed, the jury also interviews peers to avoid disclosure by inference.  Grand jurors may be found guilty of a misdemeanor if they violate their oath of secrecy.   If anything, the proposed law would compromise the confidentiality of the existing process.

The bill also proposes that the grand jury meet with the chief executive or department head of an agency subject to its investigation at least 21 days before it issues its final report to discuss the nature of the investigation and receive comments from that person.  Current law already requires such a meeting.  The stickler is the three week waiting period.  The purpose is unclear.  Of course, this would give an elected official time to make any changes necessary to undermine the report’s findings.  This certainly gives the official free political currency while undermining full disclosure.   It should be pointed out that some savvy government officials become aware of shortcomings in their operations during the course of an investigation.  They often take immediate actions to correct the deficiencies and are lauded in the grand jury report for their proactive efforts.  The three week delay is totally unnecessary.

Interestingly, the bill was authored by freshman Assemblyman Roger Dickinson.  It seems Mr. Dickinson was the subject of a grand jury investigation and report in 2008 when he served on the board of the Sacramento Public Library Authority.  The report blasted the board for lack of oversight and failing to appoint an independent treasurer or auditor. This deficiency allowed for the hiring of a maintenance company that inflated invoices for more than three years and was co-owned by the wife of a library staffer.  Does this perhaps sound like sour grapes and retaliation by an embarrassed Mr. Dickenson?  You betcha!

Similar law changes to restrict civil grand juries have been attempted in the past.  The most recent attempt was in 1999, which passed, but was vetoed by the governor.

I think AB 622 stinks.  The bill is opposed by the California Grand Jurors Association and the California District Attorneys Association. You can let our Senator Mark Leno know your position on AB622 by clicking here.

I am a member of the Marin Chapter, California Grand Jury Association.