Orphans of the Storm- Grand Juries, the Legislature and the Superior Courts

Wednesday, October 29, 2008

by Bob Geiss

The grand jury is an arm of the Superior Court. You bet it is. For over 100 years, California grand juries haves been characterized as:

• ...”judicial bodies”,
• ...”instrumentalities of the courts”,
• ...”arms of the court”(Citations omitted).

But recent, and not so recent, legislation and the agreements thereto by the Superior Courts puts our grand jury system in serious jeopardy.

“Arms of the court?”, we better hedge that bet. Actions taken by the legislature, and agreed to and lauded by the courts, have cast doubts on whole grand jury and superior court relationship. The initial rupture in the relationship between courts and the grand jury occurred with the passage of the first Brown-Presley Trail Court Funding Act in 1993. The act is now enshrined as Government Code §§ 77000 and following. Specifically, GC§ 77003(a)(7) specifically excludes ...”grand jury expenses and operations” from allowable court expenses.. Subsequently, the Lockyer-Isenberg Trial Court Funding Act of 1997 made no changes to this exclusion.

The Judicial Council of California issued a Rule of Court in 1998. The rule was a response to the Brown-Presley Act. It excluded grand juries from the definition of court operations and ruled that “civil and criminal grand jury expenses were...unallowable.” The most recent 2008 Rules of Court, “Rule 10.810 Court Operations” again specifically excludes grand juries from a definition of court operations (Rule 10.810 (b)Exclusions(6))

Until these acts were passed, grand juries were consistently views as “arms of the court” and the superior courts, which impaneled and “supervised” the grand juries. The courts used their inherent authority to paper over the gaps created by minimal and often ambiguous grand jury statutes. The laws have been incomplete, inconsistent, and confusing for years, but had little adverse consequence to the operations of most grand juries because the grand juries, the courts and other legal advisers have made up local rules as they went along. It seems to have worked acceptably. Patchwork statutes, occasional appellate guidance and local judicial interest and intervention at the county level has given us the system that works acceptably for the state today. 58 counties, 58 approaches.

Where do these rulings, definitions and legislation put grand juries in the future? Apparently afloat, and maybe sinking, on a sea of uncertainty. The actions, or inactions, by the Judicial Council of Superior Court in response to the legislative acts cited above, seemingly have put the whole grand jury status into limbo. By statute, we are excluded from and are not defined in court operations. Each county’s grand jury is dependent on the county bodies they are mandated to investigate for the funds they need to operate. Before, we had at least the tacit backing of the Superior Courts in negotiating budgets with our local counties. According to the government code, that backing does not exist. I can imagine that state-wide budget exigencies will make grand juries operations take significant hits in the upcoming years - to the detriment of much needed civilian oversight.