Clinton v. Superior Court

THE COURT.

In the petition herein for a writ of mandate, the petitioner alleges, among other things, that he is a member of the grand jury of the Superior Court in and for the County of Los Angeles; that “pursuant to his oath as a Grand Juror as defined in the Penal Code, Section 903, requiring him to diligently inquire into offenses of which he shall have or can obtain legal evidence, regularly moved before the Grand Jury for a time to be fixed for the presentation of evidence in support of certain charges that he had outlined to the said Grand Jury”; that (quoting from the petition), when “it became evident that the ease Petitioner and Plaintiff was in the process of presenting involved corruption in high places, and at that point in the presentation already the opening wedge had been driven and inquiry had already commenced into the activities of a deeply entrenched and highly organized politically protected combination dealing in the pollution of our government and the protection of vice and corruption, immediately a concerted effort on the part of certain of the Respondents and Defendants herein was initiated to stifle your Petitioner and Plaintiff’s proceeding with his case and choking off all further inquiry into the said matters. In this regard your Petitioner and Plaintiff respectfully submits that no investigation in the sense of an ‘investigation’ was necessary or requisite. All that your Petitioner and Plaintiff required and requires to proceed with the presentation of his case is the bringing before the Respondent and Defendant body of various witnesses whose names and identity are known to your Petitioner and Plaintiff. ” In that connection petitioner further alleges that as

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a part of the so-called “stifling process”, (again quoting from the petition), “the District Attorney, aided and abetted by four deputies, proceeded to insist that the taking of testimony cease and that your Petitioner present a full statement to the Criminal Complaints Committee, so-called, of the Grand Jury of all the matters that he intended to establish by the witnesses and to specifically name all of the witnesses and what the witnesses will testify to in advance ’ ’.

The petition further sets forth that the grand jury “insisted that the proceedings be tabled and that your Petitioner and Plaintiff be required to disclose to certain of the Respondents and Defendants the names of all the witnesses intended to be brought forth, together with a full statement of what each of said witnesses would testify to, which your Petitioner and Plaintiff respectfully submits is contrary to law and would merely result in practically stifling your Petitioner and Plaintiff’s attempted proceeding”. And, furthermore, it is alleged that certain members of the grand jury are disqualified and “that their connections to the persons involved in the presentation of your Petitioner and Plaintiff’s ease is inimical and in derogation of the right of your Petitioner and Plaintiff herein to present his case to the Respondent and Defendant body without informing prejudiced jurors ’ ’.