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Ellington files bill to forbid grand juries from hearing police cases

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. – Rep. Brandon Ellington, D-Kansas City, filed legislation Monday that would shift responsibility from a grand jury to an appellate court in cases involving a police-officer shooting death. The appellate court, instead of the grand jury, would determine if the evidence supports the need for an indictment.

Ellington believes the current grand jury process has become flawed after multiple high-profile cases in the last year-and-a-half; most notably the deaths of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, Eric Garner in New York; and Tamir Rice in Cleveland at the hands of police officers, went to grand jury, but failed to go to trial.

Ellington
Ellington

“Today I filed legislation to remove the grand jury process when dealing with police-involved shootings. It is a necessity that we restore trust and faith in our judicial system,” Ellington said in a statement, adding that the grand jury process is not necessarily fair nor unbiased.

“A grand jury is not a necessity to have for a criminal proceeding because grand juries are known for being a prosecutor court and they are viewed as one-sided,” he continued. “By having an appellate court make this determination, we can ensure justice will be served.”

Ellington is not the only person to become disillusioned with the grand jury process. A similar piece of legislation recently become law in California, and in 2003, the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, argued that the grand jury process was a mystery to all but those familiar with the process, which allowed for abuses to occur.

“That ignorance largely explains how some over-reaching prosecutors have been able to pervert the grand jury, whose original purpose was to check prosecutorial power, into an inquisitorial bulldozer that enhances the power of government and now runs roughshod over the constitutional rights of citizens,” lawyers W. Thomas Dillard, Stephen R. Johnson, and Timothy Lynch write in their executive summary. They go on to explain that the prosecutor, someone who constantly works with and has a vested interest in assisting the police, has all of the power in a grand jury case, since he is the only authority figure in the grand jury process.

“… in sharp contrast to the trial setting, the jurors hear only one side of the story and there is no judge overseeing the process,” they write. “With no judge or opposing counsel in the room, grand jurors naturally defer to the prosecutor since he is the most knowledgeable official on the scene.”

Roorda
Roorda

However, Jeff Roorda, the executive director of the St. Louis Police Officers’ Association and outspoken advocate for police forces around the country, said this new legislation would deprive officers accused of serious crimes their right to due process.

“It’s not about justice or how the system works, it’s about manipulating the system to their own purposes,” he said. “This reflects of this radical anti-government point of view that cops are second-class citizens and shouldn’t be entitled to the same constitutional protections that the rest of us enjoy. When a police officer is accused of a crime, he should have the same due process and the same recourse as any other citizen does.”

He also criticized the idea of making the appellate courts the new authority when it comes to deciding whether or not to go forward on a prosecution.

“That shows a complete misunderstanding of the way the judiciary works,” he said. “It’s surprising that an elected representative would have less of an understanding of the judiciary than most fifth-graders.

“The only function of the appellate court and the only authority they have is to take up appeals from the lower courts. To have them insert themselves into a process that works very well, that no one complained about in Baltimore – the radical cop-haters out there thought the grand juries were fine.”

Roorda is referring to the six police officers accused of wrongdoing in the death of Freddie Gray. A grand jury indicted all six officers in May 2015.