The Inquisitorial Functions of Grand Juries

Abstract

WHILE denying traditional virtues of grand juries and discrediting them as wielders of power of indictment, current criticism nevertheless remains non-committal as to their value for John Doe investigation into crime. As epitomized by report of National Commission for Law Observance and Enforcement, there seems to be some feeling that they are still of possible use in that quarter: Today grand jury is useful only as a general investigating body for inquiring into conduct of public officers and in case of It should be retained as an occasional instrument for such purposes. . .. In same vein, legislation in information states, mirrored in American Law Institute's Draft Code of Criminal Procedure, retains possibility of impanelling occasional grand juries for purposes of investigation.2 But with attention concentrated on disadvantages of accusation by indictment, implications of provision for merely occasional grand juries have perhaps not been entirely foreseen. For these two problems-accusation and investigation-are scarcely separable, either in practice or policy. Grand jury inquiry has by no means been confined to city-wide inquiries into the conduct of public officers, nor again to dealing with large conspiracies. Criminal investigation has also its everyday side. Not infrequently witnesses must be subpoenaed, i.e., there must be an investigation, before it is possible to determine on a charge against some particular person, whether complaint before a magistrate or information by prosecutor be step contemplated. The extent of past reliance on grand juries in this regard is well brought out in a minority opinion by Judge Chase of New York Court of Appeals: