Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Kern County: Grand Jury taking volunteer applications

Kern Valley Sun - Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Applications for the Kern County Grand Jury will be accepted from now through April 13. The Kern County Grand Jury is made up of a group of 19 citizens, randomly selected from a pool of citizens who have made their interest known. Applicants are interviewed and then nominated by the Superior Court Judges of our County. Judges are very interested in obtaining a volunteer pool representative of the ethnic and cultural diversity of all communities in our County. The final selection process will be conducted in open session of court during the month of June.

Once selected, Grand Jurors act as an investigative body to ensure that county and city governments are efficiently operated and that public funds are effectively spent. The Grand Jury also hears evidence of public offences presented by the Kern County District Attorney’s Office and, where appropriate, may issue criminal indictments. Applicants must be willing to spend approximately 20 hours a week in performing these tasks.

Candidates for the Grand Jury must be Unites States citizens, at least 18 years of age, have a working knowledge of the English language and have resided in the County for at least one year. Grand Jurors serve for a one year period beginning July 2012.

If Grand Jury service is for you, you may contact Deanna Maxwell at the Kern County Grand Jury, 1415 Truxtun Avenue, Bakersfield, CA 93301, or telephone 661-868-4797 to obtain your application for nomination. You may also download an application from the Grand Jury website at www.co.kern.ca.us/grandjury.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

If the grand jury is nominated by sitting judges why is that not a conflict of intrest when the grand jury is investigating a sitting judge or the district attorneys office .considering the kern county district attorneys office track record for fairness I dont want to insult anyone but you have to be kidding. How many sitting judges came to the bench from the district attorneys office?