Sutter Co., Ca.
The 2017/2018 17 member Sutter County Grand Jury resigned in protest of their report being edited. After a year of investigating Sutter County government the report was presented for publication. When it came back to the Grand Jury it had been edited and no longer reflected the final report. It is believed to reflect badly on the Sutter County District Attorney and the Sutter County County Council. It is rumored that the County Council had told the Grand Jury that if the report was released the county would not defend them against any libel suits. Because the Grand Jury is sworn to secrecy until the report is signed and released hard facts are not able to be obtained.
No members of the 2017/2018 Grand Jury were present for the swearing in of the 2018/2019 Grand Jury. Rebecca (Beckie) Jennings, President of the Sutter County Grand Jurors' Association pressured the Sutter County Board of Supervisors to write to the State Attorney Generals' office in an attempt to get hard facts and investigate what got us to this point.
Below are the actual correspondence that has taken place.
July 3l, 2018
Mr. Xavier Becerra, Attorney General
1300 I Street, Sacramento, CA 95814-2919
Dear Attorney General Becerra:
I am writing regarding the Sutter County Civil Grand Jury's 2017/18 report, and to request your assistance to ensure the proper processes and laws were followed in the Grand Jury's decision not to make their report public.
In late June, advising Judge Brian Aronson announced that the report would not be published. To date, no reason has been given as to why the Grand Jury elected not to publish their report.
It is my understanding that all members of the 2017/18 Sutter County Grand Jury resigned shortly before their term was to expire. It is also my understanding that the Board of Supervisors and some Sutter County department heads received a preliminary repo1i, but were instructed to keep the contents confidential, since the Grand Jury elected not to publish.
The Grand Jury operated with an approximate budget of $47K. During their investigation, pursuant to Penal Code §926, they received an additional $1OK for outside counsel from attorney Charles Poulus. Late in the term, Judge Brian Aronson took over as the supervising judge.
Grand juries serve an important watchdog function using public resources, and the report not being publically released, along with the entire Grand Jury's resignation raises many questions. It is in the public interest to ensure that there was no improper influence of the decision to not publish the report or make redactions. The Sutter County Grand Jury has published a report every year since 2001, and if a report is not published, the community deserves to know the circumstances that lead to this decision and whether or not the legal process was followed accordingly.
Specifically, the following questions should be addressed and answered publicly:
1. Why was the 2017/18 Sutter County Grand Jury Report not published?
2. Did the supervising Judge require redactions? If so, did the required redactions comply with Penal Code §929?
3. What if any communications (written or oral) were made by outside parties to the grand jury prior to its decision to not publish the report? Were any of these communications unlawful or improper?
4. Was a preliminary report distributed to affected Sutter County agencies pursuant to Penal Code §933.05(f)? If so, is it required for this preliminary report to be made available to the public?
I appreciate any assistance the Depai1ment of Justice (DOJ) can offer to address these questions. I look forward to hearing from you regarding what actions may be available and appropriate for the DOJ to verify the Grand Jury process followed appropriate procedures and was free from improper influence. If you require further information or have any questions please contact my office at (916) 319-2003.
Sincerely,
James Gallagher
Assemblyman, 3 District
____________________
August 8, 2018
Xavier Becerra, Attorney General
1300 I Street, Sacramento, CA 95814-2919
Re: 2017/2018 Sutter County Grand Jury
Dear Attorney General Becerra:
As you are aware the entire 2017/2018 Sutter County Grand Jury resigned and did not publish its final report. The Sutter County Board of Supervisors has received numerous requests for information from concerned constituents regarding the Grand Jury process and the unpublished report.
The Board of Supervisors has been apprised by the Sutter County Superior Court that the Grand Jury process and the report are confidential. Consequently, the Board is unable to respond to the requests for information. The Board is unaware of any wrongdoing by the Court, Grand Jurors, County staff, or anyone else associated with this process. The purpose of this communication is to make you aware of the issues raised by our concerned citizens. If appropriate we request a review of the 20I7/2018 Sutter County Grand Jury process.
Please keep in mind that the Board understands that the Grand Jury serves as one of the checks and balances of local government. If you have any questions regarding this matter, please contact me at 530-822-7100.
Sincerely, Dan Flores
Chairman Sutter County Board of Supervisors
Mat Conant
Vice Chairman Sutter County Board of Supervisors
cc: Sutter County Board of Supervisors Scott Mitnick,
County Administrator Jean Jordan,
County Counsel Stephanie Hansel, Court Executive Officer
Sutter County Superior Court Presiding Judge Brian Aronson
____________________
Dear Sutter County Board of Supervisors:
Due to the resignation of the 17 Grand Jurists, and the subsequent absence of a Grand Jury report for the 2017/2018 Grand Jury term, questions have surfaced that need to be addressed. Our Grand Jury Association is comprised of former Forepersons and previous Grand Jury members; we strongly fear the Grand Jury process has failed.
There are many checks and balances in the system to protect and guard against inappropriate managing of this process. There are several areas where it appears this year’s Grand Jury may have not been allowed to be independent as prescribed by law.
We are hearing many strong allegations surrounding the 2017/2018 Grand Jury, one of the allegations is that they were threatened they would be sued for libel and told they would not be protected by County Counsel if they released the report.
In People v Superior Court (1973 Grand Jury) (Santa Barbara County) (1975) 13 Cal. 3d 430 states: The grand jury is a judicial body, an instrumentality of the court. However, subject to the court’s general supervision, the grand jury has full independence of action when performing its watchdog functions and the court has no authority to impose its own views on the grand jury or suppress a report simply because it considers it ill-advised, insufficiently documented, or even libelous.
We made an inquiry of County Administration office to confirm two things:
1. Does the county have a policy in place to guide County Counsel in the event County Counsel needs to recuse themselves when they believe they have a conflict? We have been told there are no such policies. In our research into other counties we have found if lead County Counsel has a conflict in most counties the grand jury advisory role is assigned to another attorney in the County Counsel office and the jury is protected by the client attorney privilege.
2. We also checked to see if our County Board of Supervisors was consulted in this decision and we were told they were not. The attorney general in the decision listed below explains the protection counties are required to provide to the grand jury.
Indemnification/defense for defamation suits 81 Ops.Cal.Atty.Gen. 199 (1998)
A county must indemnify (pay a settlement or judgment) and pay for the defense of grand jurors sued for defamation for statements made within a final report that is within the jury’s jurisdiction. Jurors are considered to be county employees for this purpose.
The decision does not say support can be withdrawn due to concerns of liable. It does however state, the only time a county can withdraw legal counsel is if the jury went outside their jurisdiction. For example a jury decided to investigate an agency outside of their own county.
Grand Jurys provide an important watch dog function which has been built into our state constitution in order to help protect and proclaim the importance of the Civil Grand Jury process. California is currently the only state in the United States with a functioning civil grand jury system. Grand juries were established throughout California during the early years of statehood. As constituted today, the Grand Jury is a part of the Judicial Branch of government, an arm of the Court.
It is very disturbing that the entire 2017/2018 Civil Grand Jurors resigned 4 days prior to the end of their term and made the decision to not release a final report. It raises the question, “What could have possibly happened that this jury felt they had no other recourse but to resign and not release a final report?”
Our citizens have a right to know whether or not our Grand Jury system was compromised and to discover if there was in fact improper pressure placed on the jury to redact information from their report or too not publish their findings. We know they produced a report because it was delivered to various department heads as well as the Board of Supervisors, City Officials and Elected Officials as stated in a letter from the Honorable Judge Heckman. “On June 14, 2018 you were mailed a preliminary copy of the 2017-2018 Grand Jury Report section(s) that pertains to your department. After those copies were mailed, the Grand Jury elected to not publish an authorized final report. Therefore, there is no report to respond to.” The penal code that explains this process states: The grand jury must give the relevant parts of the report to the official or entity it investigated two business days in advance of the report’s public release and after its approval by the judge. (PC §933.05(f)).
The date stamped as received by the county on the letter from the courts show the letter was received by the county on July 9th twenty-seven days after they had received their copy of the unauthorized report. Why?
Judge Heckman goes onto say, “Please be advised that any physical or electronic copies of the preliminary report continue to be confidential unless it is ultimately included in an authorized final report. Los Angeles Times v. Superior Court (2003) 114Cal. App.4th247.”
The Sutter County Grand Jurors’ Association has been involved in training and educating on the Civil Grand Jury process since 2011. We were honored to have the opportunity to meet the 2017/2018 Civil Grand Jury and to provide additional training on such topics as how to conduct a proper investigation as well as congeniality and committee formation. During our training for the 2017/2018 Sutter County Civil Grand we found these jury members to be dedicated, intelligent and civically minded. The question we should be asking is why after working 365 days the entire Grand Jury would resign without releasing their report allowing their efforts to go for naught.
We respectfully request the Sutter County Board of Supervisors look into the allegations surrounding the legal advice provided or not provided by County Counsel to the 2017/2018 Grand Jury and report the findings to the citizens of Sutter County.
We further request, as a board that is responsible for the governance of our county, that you draft a letter to the Department of Justice (DOJ) addressed to the Attorney General requesting their office conduct a thorough investigation into this matter.
Respectfully,
Rebecca Jennings
President Sutter County Grand Jurors’ Association
Steve Meyer
Vice President Sutter County Grand Jurors’ Association
CC: Supervisor Dan Flores
Supervisor Ron Sullenger Supervisor Larry Munger
Supervisor Mat Conant
Supervisor Jim Whitaker
Sutter County CAO Scott Mitnick
District Attorney Amanda Hopper
Sutter County Counsel Jean Jordan
Superior Court Judge Sarah Heckman
Superior Court Judge Brian Aronson
Attorney General Xavier Becerra
Governor Edmond G. Brown Jr.
US Congressman John Garamendi
Senator Jim Nielsen
Assemblyman James Gallagher
Fox 40 Sonseeahray Tonsall
Appeal Democrat Rachel Rosenbaum
Chico Enterprise-Record Risa Johnson
Sacramento Bee Ryan Sabalow
Capital Public Radio Bob Moffitt
August 13, 2018
Territorial Dispatch
An Independent Daily Online Newspaper
No comments:
Post a Comment