Secrecy blurs role of grand juries in legal system

A federal grand jury investigation continues into the disappearances of about 20 Somali-American men from Minnesota. Over the past eight or nine months, friends and other people with ties to some of the men have been called to testify before the grand jury in Minneapolis.

Grand juries are in the news a lot, but few people actually know what happens when they meet. In fact, secrecy is one of the requirements of a grand jury.

Orville Lindquist is one of the chosen few who know what actually goes on in a Minnesota grand jury room; he served as grand juror in St. Paul.

"There was one big overarching case that I can't talk a lot about because it's pretty specific," Lindquist said. "We had one major case, a couple of middle-size cases and a lot of cases that were an hour or a half hour."

Each grand jury consists of 23 people chosen from the entire state. They typically serve for three days per month for 12 months, which can be extended if necessary.

Sometimes, like in the case of long-term investigations, prosecutors bring in witnesses to testify under oath. Other times, FBI agents or police will explain the facts of a specific case themselves and ask the grand jury to indict.

Unless there's a court order, all grand jurors are barred for life from divulging what took place in the jury room. Besides the jurors and testifying witnesses, the only people allowed in the room are prosecutors and a court reporter. Those who testify are the only ones who can reveal what happened in the jury room, even though prosecutors ask them not to.

"They don't really represent one community, they represent a whole bunch of communities."

Jeff Paulsen, chief prosecutor for the federal criminal division of Minnesota, said many people misunderstand the grand jury's role because they confuse it with a trial jury. Trial juries are set up to determine guilt or innocence; grand juries are set up to determine whether a prosecutor has enough evidence to charge a person with a crime. Paulsen said secrecy is important to protecting an investigation.

"[So as] not to give advance warning to the people that are under investigation so that they may flee or try to obstruct the investigation," Paulsen said. "An equally important reason is that not everybody investigated is guilty or ends up being charged."

But grand juries have been called rubber stamps because they tend to indict 99 percent of the time. The rules for allowing evidence before a grand jury are much looser than the rules during a trial. A person who testifies before a grand jury as part of an investigation or as a target can't have a defense attorney in the room. After being asked a question, witnesses are allowed to leave the room and talk to their defense attorneys outside but must do so for every question.

Katherian Roe, Chief Federal Defender for Minnesota, said grand juries serve an important role in the legal system, but she believes the playing field could be evened a bit. She said those summoned to testify before a grand jury often don't know that an attorney will be provided to them at no charge if they ask. She said the situation can be very intimidating, particularly for those who aren't familiar with the system.

"[To be] be confronted by folks who want information from them, and they have no counsel and they have not spoken to counsel, I think it can be a very scary situation even when you get a lawyer," Roe said. "But the reality is most of the folks who testify before the grand jury never have counsel."

One legal scholar said grand juries are meant to be a community's check on the prosecutor's power. He said the reason there's such a high indictment rate is because it forces prosecutors to bring in only well-grounded cases.

But Kevin Washburn, dean of the University of New Mexico's law school and a former prosecutor, said there's one problem with grand juries. He said they're supposed to represent the community, but in Minnesota and many other places, that's the entire state -- too big an area to be truly representative.

"They don't really represent one community, they represent a whole bunch of communities so their representative value is diluted," Washburn said. "For at least local kinds of crimes, violent crimes and those sorts of things, I think we would be far better off drawing a grand jury from the community that was affected by the crime."

When asked whether he'd want to serve on a grand jury again, Orville Lindquist of Minneapolis had a mixed reaction. He said eliminating three days a month for more than a year began affecting his work life. He said the work is hard, but it is public service and he probably would serve again.

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