November
29, 2014
Sacramento
Bee
By
Sam Stanton
Over the years, a panel of 19
Sacramento County residents has investigated the county’s Child Protective
Services agency three times, peered into the challenges facing the Delta town
of Isleton and helped uncover corruption inside Sacramento’s library system.
The group has toured area
prisons, studied officer-involved shootings and investigated questionable
activities inside school districts.
Now, the Sacramento County
grand jury is seeking new applicants to serve a yearlong term that participants
say is short on financial rewards but an important method of guaranteeing
oversight on public bodies.
“It’s a very rewarding
challenge to get on the grand jury and to be able to look at the inner workings
of a lot of agencies,” said Don Prange, a 76-year-old veteran of seven of the
last 10 grand juries.
Prange, who has served as
foreman for five of those years, said the panel has helped expose widespread
problems and wrongdoing, and issued more than 250 subpoenas during his time to
help investigate agencies.
A former Ohio police chief,
Prange said he became interested in serving after seeing a story about grand
jury recruitment in The Bee and deciding he needed a challenge other than
playing golf and volunteering at Senior Gleaners Inc.
He is now in his final year
serving on the panel, which pays grand jurors $30 a day plus mileage, and says
he has met citizens of all ages and interests on the grand jury.
Jurors selected for the panel
serve for a one-year period that begins July 1 and work 15 to 20 hours a week.
The panel is advised by a Sacramento Superior Court judge and has authority to
investigate public bodies and officials, as well as to investigate tips from
the public.
The grand jury has the
authority to issue criminal indictments in coordination with the Sacramento
County District Attorney’s Office, although most of its activities result in an
annual report that outlines its findings.
Some of the grand jury
investigations have resulted in scathing reports about agencies such as CPS or
the library system, while others have produced recommendations for improvement
at schools districts or other entities that typically get little oversight.
“The Library investigation (in
connection with the D.A.’s Office) resulted in the Library Director resigning,
millions of dollars being defrauded uncovered, millions of dollars in overdue
fines being uncovered and (three) people being sent to prison,” grand jury
coordinator Becky Casteneda wrote in an email.
To serve, candidates must be a
U.S. citizen, a resident of the county and be at least 18. Citizens currently
serving on a trial jury or who have been discharged from a grand jury in the
past year are not eligible.
Judges may nominate candidates
to serve, or interested individuals can apply by mail by sending a letter of
interest to Sacramento County Grand Jury, 720 Ninth St., Room 611, Sacramento
CA 95814.
The letter should be mailed by
Feb. 2.
Potential candidates must
undergo a criminal background check and file a statement of economic interest.
More application information and a questionnaire to be returned is available at
www.sacgrandjury.org.
Call The Bee’s Sam Stanton,
(916) 321-1091.
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