Quadra v. SUPERIOR CT. OF CITY & CTY. OF SAN FRANCISCO

• Decision Date: 29 October 1975
• Docket Number: No. C-72-1689-CBR.,C-72-1689-CBR.
• Citation: 403 F. Supp. 486
• Parties: Indiana QUADRA et al., Plaintiffs, v. SUPERIOR COURT OF the CITY AND COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO et al., Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Northern District of California

403 F. Supp. 486

Indiana QUADRA et al., Plaintiffs, v. SUPERIOR COURT OF the CITY AND COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO et al., Defendants.

No. C-72-1689-CBR.

United States District Court, N. D. California.

October 29, 1975.

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Sidney M. Wolinsky, Public Advocates, Inc., Jon Van Dyke, Hastings College of the Law, San Francisco, Cal., for plaintiffs.

Thomas M. O'Connor, City Atty., George E. Krueger, Deputy City Atty., San Francisco, Cal., for defendants.

MEMORANDUM OF OPINION

RENFREW, District Judge.

This case came before the Court on plaintiffs' and defendants' motions for partial summary judgment. Plaintiffs, a number of individual citizens of the City and County of San Francisco, challenge the constitutionality of the grand juries empaneled by the defendant judges of the Superior Court of San Francisco.¹ At an earlier stage in this litigation, this Court issued a Memorandum of Opinion and Order, 378 F.Supp. 605 (N.D.Cal.1974), disposing of certain motions to dismiss and motions for summary judgment. The issues squarely presented to the Court by the present motions is whether the analysis in that opinion has been overtaken and mooted by subsequent events.

Beginning on April 1, 1975, the defendant Superior Court judges, acting pursuant to California Penal Code Section 904.6, divided the formerly unitary San Francisco grand jury into two grand juries, one essentially criminal and the other essentially civil. That action by the defendant judges raises the novel legal question of the proper constitutional standards to be applied to a grand jury with none of the traditional criminal indictment powers, but with extensive civil investigative powers. Plaintiffs do not challenge the criminal grand jury which, under the recently inaugurated system, is chosen at random from those persons qualified as either civil or criminal trial jurors.

As stated in the earlier opinion, 378 F.Supp. at 612-613, this case does not involve a challenge to the constitutionality of California Penal Code Section 903.4, which vests in the Superior Court judges the discretion to select the grand jury from those individuals in the community with the requisite qualifications.² However, both in their briefs and in oral argument, plaintiffs have persisted in advancing arguments inconsistent with this basic limitation to the scope of this Court's review of the San Francisco grand jury. Most numerous are arguments exploring in intricate detail the perceived inadequacies and dangers of a system of grand juror selection vesting discretion in the hands of the selectors.³ As was clearly held in the earlier opinion in this case, not only does this Court lack jurisdiction to strike down the discretionary system so clearly authorized by California statute, but also there is abundant authority that a selection system that can be administered without discrimination, as this one can, is not on its face unconstitutional. See, e. g., Carter v. Jury Commission, 396 U.S. 320, 90 S.Ct. 518, 24 L.Ed.2d 549 (1970); Hernandez v. Texas, 347 U.S. 475, 74 S.Ct. 667, 98 L.Ed. 866 (1954); Cassell v. Texas, 339 U.S. 282, 70 S.Ct. 629, 94 L.Ed. 839 (1950); Akins v. Texas, 325 U.S. 398, 65 S.Ct. 1276, 89 L.Ed. 1692 (1945); Smith v. Texas, 311 U.S. 128, 61 S.Ct. 164, 85 L. Ed. 84 (1940). Therefore, this Court will treat these motions as related to the claim that the results of the grand jury selection system as applied in San Francisco are unconstitutional.

The first question for decision is whether the requirements set out in the Court's earlier opinion for establishing a prima facie case of discrimination in the selection of the grand jury are applicable to the civil investigative grand jury established by the defendants. In assessing plaintiffs' challenge to the unitary grand jury system then in existence in San Francisco, the Court held that where a selection system provides an opportunity for discrimination,⁴ "evidence showing a great disparity between the representation of a group over time on the grand jury and its percentage of the eligible population can be sufficient to establish a prima facie case." 378 F. Supp. at 614. Relying primarily on several Supreme Court decisions concerning school desegregation and the distinction between de jure and de facto segregation, defendants have argued, in effect, that the above analysis is incorrect for a constitutional challenge to any grand jury.⁵ This Court finds the cases cited by defendants inapplicable to the question presently at issue and thus rejects the argument that there must be a showing of scienter or actual intent to discriminate in a case challenging the constitutionality of a grand jury. Therefore, it is necessary to turn to an analysis of the civil investigative grand jury in order to determine whether the above analysis should be applied to it as well as to the more traditional grand jury.

Not until the decision of the Supreme Court in Carter v. Jury Commission, supra, 396 U.S. at 320, 90 S.Ct. 518, could individual members of identifiable community groups excluded from grand jury service challenge the constitutionality of the grand jury even though they had not themselves been criminally indicted. Because all cases prior to Carter involved challenges by criminal defendants to the constitutionality of the grand juries that indicted them, judicial analysis, explicitly or implicitly, centered on the criminal indictment function of the grand jury. Although the possession by grand juries of powers other than the returning of criminal indictments is not apparently unusual, a grand jury limited to extensive civil investigative powers is unique.⁶ Merely appending the label "grand jury" to an entity should not alone be sufficient to trigger the constitutional analysis applied to grand juries having dramatically different powers and functions. Thus, in a field of the law with an extensive body of precedent, this is a case of first impression, the resolution of which will require a comparison of the San Francisco civil investigative grand jury with the more traditional grand juries involved in other cases.

Under their criminal responsibilities, grand juries perform both functions of investigation and indictment.⁷ Although the criminal investigative role of the grand jury has been the subject of considerable controversy, it has been enthusiastically endorsed by the Supreme Court in Branzburg v. Hayes, 408 U.S. 665, 687 n. 23, 92 S.Ct. 2646, 33 L. Ed.2d 626 (1973). The Supreme Court has also praised the indictment role of the grand jury as providing "a primary security to the innocent against hasty, malicious and oppressive persecution." Branzburg v. Hayes, supra at 687 n. 23, 92 S.Ct. at 2659, quoting Wood v. Georgia, 370 U.S. 375, 390, 82 S.Ct. 1364, 8 L.Ed.2d 569 (1962). In performing these criminal functions the grand jury imports the common sense and decency of ordinary citizens into the criminal justice system, providing a buffer against possible prosecutorial excesses. In our pluralistic society, it is unfair and unconstitutional to exclude the perspective of any of the identifiable groups in the population. This sentiment undoubtedly lies behind the Supreme Court's description of the jury as "a body truly representative of the community". Carter v. Jury Commission, supra, 396 U.S. at 330, 90 S.Ct. at 524, quoting Smith v. Texas, 311 U.S. 128, 130, 61 S.Ct. 164, 85 L.Ed. 84 (1940). The possibility for abuse and injustice is obvious when a criminal defendant is indicted by a grand jury from which members of the defendant's own group have been excluded. The Supreme Court has held that the exclusion of members of identifiable groups is of such significance that it can even be raised by a criminal defendant who is not a member of any of the excluded groups. Peters v. Kiff, 407 U.S. 493, 92 S.Ct. 2163, 33 L. Ed.2d 83 (1972). The states are not constitutionally required to use grand juries as a part of their criminal justice systems, but, if they do elect to do so, they are required to insure that the grand jurors are selected without discrimination. Carter v. Jury Commission, supra, 396 U.S. at 330, 90 S.Ct. 518.

Although the analogy between a grand jury with criminal investigative and indictment powers and one with only civil investigative powers is not complete, the Court concludes that it is sufficiently great that the same stringent constitutional standards should apply to claims of discrimination in either case. Although the particular application may differ, the essential genius of the grand jury is the same whether the area of concern is criminal or civil, for through the institution of the grand jury the state places ordinary citizens in key positions with respect to important governmental processes. The importance of the grand jury in the criminal justice system has been described above. In California, the mandate given to the civil investigative grand jury is broad, with powers commensurate to the task. Comparable to a perpetual ombudsman, the civil investigative grand jury occupies a strategic position in county government.⁸ With its powers to compel testimony and to initiate impeachment proceedings, this grand jury can undertake wide-ranging investigations into inefficiency and corruption in county government. Operating primarily in nonjudicial areas, the civil investigative grand jury is nevertheless like the criminal grand jury in providing a mechanism by which the viewpoints of ordinary citizens can be brought to bear directly on governmental decision-making. This function is important not only because of the transmission of community values and concerns to the decision-making bodies, but also because of the opportunities for individuals to serve on such a grand jury.

In several cases, the Supreme Court's description of the grand jury suggests an importance transcending its role in the criminal judicial process. In Smith v. Texas, supra, 311 U.S. at 130, 61 S.Ct. at...