Footnotes:

(1) California Penal Code, Section 888-939.91 Click on this and search on “penal code” with key words “grand jury.”

California Penal Code excerpts:

888. A Grand Jury is … sworn to inquire of public offenses committed or triable within the county.

917. The grand jury may inquire into all public offenses committed or triable within the county and present them to the court by indictment.

918. If a member of a grand jury knows, or has reason to believe, that a public offense, triable within the county, has been committed, he may declare it to his fellow jurors, who may thereupon investigate it.

919(c) The grand jury shall inquire into the willful or corrupt misconduct in office of public officers of every description within the county.

921. The grand jury is entitled to free access, at all reasonable times, to the public prisons, and to the examination, without charge, of all public records within the county. 923. Whenever the Attorney General considers the public interest requires, he may, with or without the concurrence of the District attorney, direct the grand jury to convene for the investigation and consideration of such matters of a criminal nature as he desires to submit to it.

925a. The grand jury may at any time examine the books and records of any incorporated city or joint powers agency located in the county.

(2) Jameson, Dr. Marianne. The Grand Jury: A Brief Historical Overview. California Grand Jurors Association. 1997.

(3) COUNTY OF MONTEREY GRAND JURY REPORT 2000

(5) Report of the Nevada County 1999-2000 Civil Grand Jury

(6) Amador County 1997-8 Grand Jury Report

(7) Orange County Grand Jury information at the Superior Court website.

(8) Orange County Grand Jury. Orange County Transportation Authority and Light Rail Planning. May 27, 1999.

(9) Orange County Grand Jury. The Disabling of Public Education in Orange County. April 12, 2000.

Let’s have Civil Grand Juries

Such bodies in Hawai’i could look into official misconduct and audit the operations of state and county governments

California’s Civil Grand Jury system may work in Hawaii. Each California County has to have a Civil Grand Jury required by law “to inquire into the willful or corrupt misconduct in office of public officers of every description within the county.” And “to make an annual examination of the operations, accounts and records of the officers, departments or functions of the county.”(1)

The way the Grand Jury system works in Orange County, for example, is that annually the jury commissioner, the current and past jury foremen and Superior Court judges, together vet a pool of volunteer citizens and pare it down to 30 responsible individuals. From the 30 individuals, 19 are chosen by lot to be the Grand Jury.(2)

Some Hawaii political experience would lead one to believe that such a process would allow the establishment to weed out all the troublemakers leaving only those who were “sound” and “reliable,” which is to say, those who will “go along.”

However, there it is different. The Grand Juries, in practice, are groups of ordinary citizens who “tend to be older, better educated and more affluent than the community at large,” whose “powers include … the right to examine all public records within the county;” and “the ability, with permission of the Superior Court, to hire such experts as auditors and accountants.”(1)

For the most part these juries inquire into the petty pilfering and inefficiencies of politically run county operations. For example, the Marin County Grand Jury recommends that the Board of Supervisors “discretionary” Fund be terminated “given the potential for political patronage abuse.”(4) The Nevada County Grand Jury comes down hard on the Sheriff over his poor operation of the jail (5) and Amador County Jury forces the resignation of an official with a second job in an adjacent county(6).

What initially drew my attention to these Civil Grand Juries was the Orange County Grand Jury’s report on its light rail planning process. It is in plain English untrammeled by political jargon and the usual bureaucratic obfuscation. (7) The jurors tell their fellow citizens, for example, that a decision on whether or not to build a rail line, “should not be based on public relations fluff; it should not be a ‘done deal’ followed by a search for its justification.” (8) These Grand Jurors “examined the last 12 urban light rail systems developed in the U.S.” The conclusion: “Unhappily, they have provided virtually no reduction of traffic congestion and, consequently, no reduction in air pollution. The percentage of people using transit to get to work has declined in all major metropolitan areas and the decline has been as significant in the … areas that built light rail as the ones that did not.” (9)

To understand the advantages of having such Civil Grand Juries here in Hawaii at both the state and county levels, one must bear in mind the enormous impact of our current State Auditor who still can only investigate as ordered by the Legislature.

Now, imagine—imagine real hard—if Ms. Higa was not only given the latitude but she was required on her own initiative “to inquire into the willful or corrupt misconduct in office of public officers of every description” as is required of these Grand Juries.

It is a delicious thought.

But we can only sigh wistfully at the idea that such a Grand Jury concept would ever survive here in Hawaii; for one thing it would have too much work.

Cliff Slater is a regular columnist whose footnoted columns are at: www.lava.net/cslater