Though the use of a standing criminal grand jury was one of the
San Benito County Bar Association’s main reasons for issuing a
”
no confidence
”
vote against District Attorney John Sarsfield, he believes the
good far outweighs any problems with the panel.
Hollister – Though the use of a standing criminal grand jury was one of the San Benito County Bar Association’s main reasons for issuing a “no confidence” vote against District Attorney John Sarsfield, he believes the good far outweighs any problems with the panel.
Sarsfield made waves with local defense lawyers when he initiated the grand jury last year because of its inherent secretive nature and because it hadn’t been used much in the past administration.
The grand jury, which is made up of 19 randomly-selected community members, is impaneled every six months. Over the past year, the grand jury has heard three cases and returned indictments on all of them, Sarsfield said.
Grand jury members returned their first indictment last March against a man for felony assault against a police officer, Sarsfield said. The man, who had a long history of mental illness according to police, tried to run a sheriff’s deputy over with his car in January of 2004. The deputy fired several shots at the car, missing the driver, and eventually unleashed his police dog on the suspect. The second indictment arrived in October, when the grand jury indicted several employees of the now defunct Hollister business Central Valley Circuits who were accused of dumping toxins into the Hollister sewer system, Sarsfield said. And last week grand jury members returned an indictment against Pekin on charges of conspiracy to obstruct justice, falsifying evidence, pursuing frivolous lawsuits and attempting to elicit perjury, among others.
Twelve of the 19 grand jury members must vote to indict, and all deliberations are done in secret, Sarsfield said. The district attorney has discretion over which cases the grand jury will hear, and all witnesses subpoenaed to testify do so in the presence of the jury and the prosecutor overseeing the proceedings – there is no judge present, Sarsfield said.
Grand jury proceedings are appropriate for cases dealing with police officer shootings, such as the first case the jury heard last year, high profile cases, gang-related cases or those dealing with multiple suspects. After an indictment is delivered the case goes into the public court system, with the suspect being arraigned and either a plea bargain or trial ensuing, he said.
Criminal grand jury members are chosen completely at random and sit on the jury for six months – from January to June or July to December, said Alex Calvo, executive officer for the San Benito County Superior Court.
Every six months, approximately 75 of the people summoned for jury duty on any given day are randomly selected and sent to a courtroom to meet with Superior Court Judge Steven Sanders, Calvo said. Sanders excuses anyone who can’t serve for work or personal reasons, and chooses 19 people to sit on the grand jury from the group left over, Calvo said.
Anytime the grand jury meets, members are paid $15 a day plus mileage. Calvo guessed this grand jury has met no more than five times, but couldn’t say for certain because their meetings are secretive. Only when they return an indictment is it made public.
The county, not the court, foots the bill for the grand jury when they meet, which could range from about $970 to $1,170 a day, Calvo said.
Calvo said before Sarsfield initiated the standing criminal grand jury a year ago the county hadn’t had one for decades. Former District Attorney Harry Damkar has said he used a criminal grand jury about five times during his approximately 20 years in office – and only for extremely sensitive cases that warranted closed-door proceedings.
Not every county in the state utilizes a criminal grand jury, and some that do often impanel them for single cases only if the need arises, said Bill Larsen, Santa Clara County special assistant district attorney in charge of all grand jury matters for the county.
Santa Clara County has had a standing criminal grand jury since 1992 and impanels four different juries a year – with members serving three-month terms, Larsen said. Jurors hear an average of 34 cases a year, issuing indictments on 85 percent of them, he said.
Larsen said 28 of the 58 counties in California utilize a criminal grand jury, but he didn’t have a breakdown of counties that utilize standing juries and those that impanel them sporadically for single cases.
“We use the criminal grand jury in Santa Clara County regularly,” Larsen said. “It is an excellent and efficient way to execute criminal prosecutions.”
However, Larsen said it isn’t as efficient if jurors are only hearing cases once or twice a year.
