Right to Hearing in Grand Jury Indictments Is Upheld

In a defeat for prosecutors, the state Supreme Court on Thursday refused a bid to overturn a controversial 1978 ruling that sharply limited the use of grand juries in criminal cases.

The court, over dissents by two justices, issued a brief order rejecting a request by authorities in Ventura County to reconsider a decision they said has improperly impaired law enforcement and increased the time and cost of pretrial proceedings.

Only Chief Justice Malcolm M. Lucas and Justice David N. Eagleson voted to hear the case. Four votes from the seven justices are required for formal review.

In the 1978 ruling, the court held that felony defendants indicted by grand juries, like other defendants charged directly by prosecutors, were entitled to preliminary hearings to challenge the allegations against them before they go to trial.

The court, then under former Chief Justice Rose Elizabeth Bird, said that denying indicted defendants a preliminary hearing violated the constitutional right to equal protection of the law. The justices noted that, in contrast to preliminary hearings, in grand jury proceedings there were no rights to counsel, to present evidence or to confront accusers.

At present, few criminal indictments are returned by grand juries. The vast majority of prosecutions are brought by district attorneys and are followed by preliminary hearings to determine if there is sufficient evidence to proceed to trial.

Ventura County Dist. Atty. Michael D. Bradbury, with wide backing from other prosecutors in the state, asked the justices to overturn the 1978 ruling and bar preliminary hearings scheduled in the case of two Ventura men indicted by a grand jury in a $1-million fraud case.

Bradbury expressed dismay with Thursday’s action, saying it appeared there was little hope the court would overturn the 1978 decision. While another case raising the issue remains before the justices, Bradbury said the only realistic alternative appeared to be reversing the ruling through an anti-crime initiative that may go before the voters in 1990.

“We are terribly disappointed,” he said. “This represents the loss of an important tool not only to promote law enforcement but to promote justice in general.”

The court last January issued an order temporarily blocking the preliminary hearing for the two accused defendants while it further considered the request and received additional briefs on the case.

Bradbury contended that the 1978 decision was “bad legal reasoning and bad public policy” and should be changed. No other states had followed the California court’s ruling since it was issued, he pointed out.

Prosecutors from several other counties filed data with the court, indicating that many cases could be prosecuted at less expense, in less time and with less hardship on witnesses were they taken before grand juries rather than to preliminary hearings.

For example, in a 1978 murder, robbery and kidnaping case involving two defendants in Alameda County, indictments were returned by a grand jury in two days, prosecutors said. Later, a preliminary hearing, required under the high court ruling, took 39 days in court to conclude, they said.

Defense lawyers in the case urged the court to stand by the 1978 ruling, saying that grand juries too often act as “rubber stamps” for prosecutors. Overturning an established legal precedent like the 1978 decision would imply that rulings by the court were subject to “temporary tides of politics”--a reference to the fact that the court now is led by a conservative majority following the recall of Bird and two other liberal justices in the 1986 fall election.