By Sean Webby
Mercury News
Posted: 12/12/2008 06:32:06 AM PST
Passing on making the decision herself, Santa Clara County District Attorney Dolores Carr is expected to ask a secret grand jury next week to determine whether a pair of San Jose cops criminally tried to cover up a former officer's dangerous drunken driving.
Carr's tactic appears to be an effort to remove the taint of bias from a decision about prosecuting fellow law enforcement officials. But critics said Carr may not be going far enough, because she has chosen not to follow the lead of her predecessor in opening such grand jury proceedings to public view.
Beginning Monday, sources said, prosecutors will lay out the controversial case of what supervising patrol Sgt. Will Manion and officer Patrick D'Arrigo did — and did not do — on the night of March 25 after Sandra Woodall crashed her Cadillac Escalade into two other cars, sending a teenager to the hospital.
Woodall is a former San Jose police officer who now works as an investigator with the district attorney's office.
Multiple sources told the Mercury News that officers and witnesses have been called to testify in the case. Prosecutors declined to comment this week about whether they might use a grand jury, on the grounds that such proceedings are secret (unless opened to the public by the district attorney).
There are a number of reasons Carr's office may have decided to go this relatively uncommon route. For example, the office as a policy brings all
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officer-involved fatal shootings to grand juries to avoid the perception of bias. This case involves local cops allegedly trying to protect one of Carr's own employees.
But some suspect Carr's motivation was simply to avoid making a politically tough decision.
"It is a way of deflecting criticism regardless of the outcome," said Gerald F. Uelmen, a law professor at Santa Clara University. Uelmen said indicting an officer can damage the normally cooperative relationship between prosecutors and police. And not indicting officers can generate public criticism of a double standard.
Uelmen and other critics said the secrecy of the proceeding would not allow the public to get a clear view of the evidence or its presentation by prosecutors. George Kennedy, Carr's predecessor as DA, opened up grand juries in at least two major cases: the fatal police shooting of a Vietnamese woman in 2003 and the shooting of a suspect by a state narcotics agent in 2005.
"It's important that as much transparency as possible be afforded to the process," San Jose Independent Police Auditor Barbara Attard said.
One key figure in the case is gratified that it's moving forward.
"It is passing the buck, but at least it's something,'' said the mother of the teenage girl injured in the accident. She asked not be identified for fear of retribution.
Craig Brown, a lawyer who represents both officers, declined to confirm or deny if the case was being brought before a grand jury.
He did say: "If there is anything that ought to be a subject of inquiry, it ought to be on an administrative basis — not a criminal basis. I don't think either of my clients did anything inappropriate''
The jury that will decide that question is generally made up of 19 empaneled county residents, a dozen of whom must vote to indict. They will wrestle with the legal question of whether there is enough evidence to suspect that Manion — a highly respected homicide investigator who had just returned to the patrol rotation — and veteran cop D'Arrigo tried to shield Woodall from facing drunken driving charges.
Witnesses said a belligerent and disoriented Woodall was openly admitting soon after the accident that she had been drinking. But both Manion and D'Arrigo said they saw no signs of intoxication. This despite the fact that medical personnel on the scene believed she was drunk and later told San Jose police investigators they felt Manion had tried to disrupt their attempts to determine her level of sobriety.
Later, at the hospital, D'Arrigo reportedly told the flabbergasted mother of the accident victim that it was too late to test Woodall for alcohol.
After questions arose about the initial accident investigation, the district attorney's office brought in the California attorney general's office to review the case. The attorney general's office eventually charged Woodall with felony drunken driving; she has pleaded not guilty.
A preliminary hearing for Woodall is set for early next year.
http://www.mercurynews.com/localnewsheadlines/ci_11198830?nclick_check=1
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