Let Grand Juries Disclose Testimony, Justices Urged

The California Supreme Court was urged Wednesday to grant county grand juries broad authority to make public the testimony and other evidence they receive in their secret investigations of governmental actions.

Attorneys for the McClatchy Newspapers and a coalition of grand juror associations told the court in oral argument here that such disclosures serve the public’s right to know about the operations of government.

They asked the justices to uphold a 1984 state Court of Appeal ruling permitting the release of the documents at issue. The appellate court had overturned a trial judge’s order forbidding a Fresno County grand jury from including testimony transcripts, district attorney’s reports and other data with its final report on a county contract award.

“Full disclosure promotes robust debate of the issues,” said Val W. Saldana, a lawyer for McClatchy. “No statutes allow a Superior Court judge to substitute his judgment for that of the grand jury and engage in editing or reviewing a grand jury report in any way.”

But opposing attorneys told the justices such unprecedented disclosures would undermine the investigative purposes of the grand jury and discourage witnesses from coming forward to testify.

“There is no censorship going on here,” said Jerome M. Behrens, representing an unnamed county employee in the case.

“If this (appeal court) precedent is allowed to stand, it will totally devastate full and frank testimony,” he said. “The reason for secrecy is important: It provides the proper atmosphere for uninhibited testimony.”

The case arose from a 1983 grand jury investigation into allegations of irregularities in the award of a $1.37-million computer service contract. The investigation was not a criminal probe, and no indictments were returned in the six-month inquiry.

But the grand jury announced its intention to release more than its recommendations and findings that were critical of the contract award.

Superior Judge Robert Z. Mardikian allowed release of the report but barred the disclosure of some 600 pages in supporting material, ruling it would violate the confidentiality of grand jury proceedings.

Attorneys for the McClatchy Newspapers, publisher of the Fresno Bee, and other news agencies appealed the ruling, seeking release of the documents. And a state appeal court panel in Fresno overturned Mardikian’s order, saying that under current law judges lacked authority to bar such disclosures by grand juries.

“Although in a sense the grand jury operates as part of the judicial branch of government, it obviously represents the people and not the judiciary insofar as its investigative and reporting powers are concerned,” wrote Appellate Justice Donald R. Franson.

In Wednesday’s hourlong hearing, Saldana, representing McClatchy, and Peter E. Tracy, a lawyer representing the California Grand Jurors Assn. and other groups as a “friend of the court,” stressed the traditional independence of the grand jury.

“Historically, the grand jury is the ‘people’s panel,’ ” Tracy said. “It represents the people’s right to know what their government is doing.”

Justice Stanley Mosk closely questioned the attorneys defending Mardikian’s order barring release of the documents.

“What troubles me is the trial court second-guessing the grand jury,” Mosk said. “It’s an independent body. Why should part of its report be subject to censorship by the Superior Court?”

Michael G. Woods, a lawyer representing the trial court, denied the judge had “censored” the report, noting that the grand jury was still free to publish its findings and recommendations.

Confidentiality Cited

Grand jury proceedings have been long recognized as secret--a process in which confidentiality is preserved, Woods said.

“But now the appeal court ruling has changed that,” he said. “We’ve gone over 100 years with the grand jury system in California, and this is the first time this has happened.”

The justices, in a Santa Monica case, also heard debate over whether rent control boards may decide excessive rent disputes and make monetary awards against landlords who violate rent regulations.

Until the practice was stopped by a court injunction, the Santa Monica board was authorized to rule on excessive rent claims, allow the withholding of rent by successful claimants in the amount of the overcharge and penalize landlords $500 for willful violations of rent limitations.

Joel Martin Levy, general counsel for the board, denied that the board was intruding on the constitutional powers of the courts to award money damages. Such a process, he said, was “at the very heart” of the rent control system.

But attorneys representing Haidy McHugh of Santa Monica and 20 other landlords challenging the system said it improperly denied the right to a jury trial and other procedural protections that landlords and tenants would receive in court.