Countywide : Grand Jury Report Tackles Diversity

Answering criticism that it’s out of touch with the county’s ethnic minority population, the Orange County Grand Jury has issued a report suggesting ways it can improve its diversity.

The report focuses on ways to increase publicity and recruitment efforts while also assuring fairness in the investigative portion of applicant screening.

The report comes just before the Jan. 28 deadline for applicants interested in serving on next year’s panel. The grand jury is a 19-member, independent panel of citizens that can bring charges against defendants in criminal investigations and acts as a government watchdog.

The eight-page document recommends that county officials highlight the need for more members by continuing to designate November as “Grand Jury Awareness Month,” along with a promotional campaign using posters, brochures and flyers.

The outreach program described by the report also mentions using public service announcements on cable television and radio, sending follow-up letters to civic groups and creating an “open door policy” to invite input on grand jury issues from the public.

Critics have charged that the panel does not reflect Orange County’s increasingly diverse demographics. Of the 89 applicants considered for the current jury, 80 of them were white. About two-thirds were male.

Orange County is 65% white, 23% Latino, 10% Asian and 2% African American.

Bahia Wilson, chairwoman of the jury’s special issues committee, said the new measures hopefully will draw a larger pool of candidates reflecting different backgrounds.

“When we talk about diversity, we’re talking about gender, age and cultural heritage,” Wilson said. “When you have that, you have a broader sensitivity toward issues that might be coming before the grand jury.”

The grand jury’s makeup has increasingly come under fire in recent months.

Defense attorneys in the Stuart A. Tay murder trial are seeking to quash indictments handed down by the grand jury, based on a lack of minority representation. A population expert testified in the case last month that the county grand jury has a “systematic exclusion” of Asians.

A few days before that testimony, a U.S. Civil Rights Commission panel convened in Orange County to investigate complaints by Latino groups that they too are excluded.

Besides attracting new applicants, the report addressed the process of screening prospective members. To ensure fairness, the Orange County Superior Court presiding judge and the grand jury’s supervising judge should establish written, standard procedures for choosing the final 30 applicants, the report suggests.

To avoid a possible conflict of interest, the Orange County Marshal’s Office should perform background checks on applicants instead of the district attorney doing it, jurors recommended.

Background checks should not extend to visiting the homes of applicants, as it has in the past, jurors also wrote in the report. Written guidelines should be drafted for the background checks procedure.

The deadline for applications to serve on the 1994-95 grand jury is Jan. 28.

To receive an application or get more information, call the grand jury commissioner’s hot line at (714) 834-6747.