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This is important for both 2305 and 2306. The right to a grand jury is a chief component of the due process established in the bills of rights on the national and state levels, but there is little clarity in what makes a grand jury fair. The Harris County DA seems to know what it isn't:
Harris County District Attorney Devon Anderson on Sunday called for lawmakers to abolish the way judges pick grand juries, citing a growing lack of confidence in the system, which critics have said does not adequately represent a diverse population.The Chronicle provides the following links to related stories:
Texas judges tasked with empaneling 12-person grand juries - who decide whether enough evidence exists to formally charge a suspect with a crime - often have named their friends as grand jury commissioners who then pick their friends to fill the remaining spots, leading to panels of people who are socioeconomically and demographically similar.
Anderson, who has led the state's largest district attorney's office for the past 17 months, had remained neutral on calls from critics of the "pick-a-pal" system.
In a two-page Letter to the Editor of the Houston Chronicle on Sunday, she offered her full-throated support for changing the law on how grand juries are selected.
"The public is losing confidence in the grand jury system," Anderson wrote. "I support the efforts in the Texas Legislature to abolish the jury commissioner system."
Anderson, who called the current system "a historical anachronism," joins a chorus of calls for reform in the midst of fierce national debate over the diversity of the people picked to be grand jurors, an issue that has been spotlighted by several high-profile cases across the country.
In November, riots broke out in Ferguson, Mo., after a grand jury decided not to indict a white police officer in the shooting of an unarmed black teenager. A month later, protesters took to the streets in New York City when a grand jury decided not enough evidence existed to go forward with charges against a white police officer whose chokehold, which was captured on video, led to the death of an unarmed black man.
A Houston Chronicle analysis in 2013 showed that Houston police officers shot 121 civilians - 25 percent of them unarmed - between 2008 and 2012 without a single officer being indicted.
Whitmire's bill
State Sen. John Whitmire, who authored the bill to abolish the "key man" system, said recent events and local reporting reinforced his concern about how grand juries are put together and convinced him it is time for a change.
"People of all colors have lost confidence in the system," he said. "We don't need a handpicked group of the judge's friends making these decisions."
Whitmire said he attended a town hall meeting where it was apparent that minority communities in Houston have lost faith in the current system.
"I've become convinced from personal observation and knowing people - judges, prosecutors - that it's a flawed system," he said. "It's alarming when you hear the examples of what some judges are doing."
Whitmire applauded Anderson's decision to support the effort to create more diverse grand juries. He said he looked forward to partnering with her administration.
"She's the district attorney of the largest DA's office in Texas. I'm the Chair of the Senate Criminal Justice Committee," he said. "I'm a Democrat, she's a Republican, so I'm sure we'll be able to get some things done."
The problem, according to people who are reticent to make changes, is the enormous time commitment individual grand jurors have to make.
Houston's 22 felony judges are tasked with empaneling grand juries who serve two days a week for three months.
Each grand jury hears hundreds of cases and decides whether enough evidence exists to formally charge a suspect with a crime. More than 40,000 felony charges are filed in Houston every year. If enough evidence exists, the grand jury votes to hand down an indictment. If not, the grand jurors "no-bill" the suspect.
Throughout Texas, most judges use the key man system in which a judge chooses up to five commissioners, sometimes friends or past grand jurors, who then pick the other 11 grand jurors.
State District Judge Susan Brown, who is the current administrative judge in Harris County, said picking grand juries is the most difficult part of a judge's job because of the time commitment.
When she last chose a grand jury, Brown brought 30 people from the jury room to her court and explained that a commissioner makes a time commitment and is responsible for bringing in names of more prospective grand jurors. She had five volunteers. Of those, only four showed up again and only one brought in the name of another prospective grand juror.
"The reality for us is that it's really hard," she said. "I'm an advocate for whatever way gets a cross-section of the community," she said.
Judges often have relied on their friends, acquaintances and recommendations from colleagues when selecting commissioners, leading to accusations of a "good old boy system" of grand jurors.
Critics have long said judges should take their friends out of the process and instead use a random jury "wheel" to bring in prospective jurors to ensure diverse grand juries.
Several judges have said it is not as easy as it sounds.
"There's a lot of people on the wheel who probably mean well and say they'll do it, but I don't know that they will," said state District Judge Ruben Guerrero. He said he prefers to personally screen prospective grand jurors and select retired people who have the time to serve. He noted that his grand juries generally have "a good cross section of African Americans and Hispanics."
A Houston Chronicle analysis in December showed there are three times more adult Hispanics living in Harris County than the number who serve on grand juries.
Jury commissioners
A former state district judge herself, Anderson has said that she would use a random jury pool if she were still on the bench.
On Sunday, she called for an end to the current system.
"The use of jury commissioners to select grand jurors unnecessarily gives critics of the grand jury system ammunition to challenge the jurors' independence and integrity," she wrote.
She noted that other jurisdictions have used random jury wheels for years. The federal court system abolished the key man system in 1968.
"Whatever concerns the remaining district court judges have about using jury pools for selecting grand jurors should have been assuaged long ago," she wrote. "Other district courts have been using the jury pool system successfully for long enough that its viability cannot be questioned."
Anderson was appointed in September 2012 after her husband - then the district attorney - died a month earlier. She was elected in November after a bitterly fought campaign, during which she said that she does not have the authority to force any of the 22 state district judges, who are elected, to change their process.
"Getting those 22 people to agree on anything is like herding cats," she said in September.
Indeed, an informal survey of the current judges reveals most use a "hybrid" system of their own device, like personally approaching prospective jurors randomly, then asking their commissioner to consider putting them on the grand jury.
Other judges find people who are interested in being grand jurors and then conduct in-depth interviews and background checks.
If Whitmire's bill passes, it would give the judges and their staffs a standardized way to empanel grand juries with a random jury wheel.
More diversity
Carmen Roe, president of the Harris County Criminal Lawyers Association, said abolishing the commissioner system is a good first step.
"There's no question that everyone in Harris County realizes that the key man system does not result in a diverse grand jury," Roe said.
In addition to abolishing "pick a pal," Roe said the law needs to mandate that jurors are selected from a random panel without judges intervening.
"We have to go one step further and make sure that the first 12 qualified grand jurors are seated," Roe said. "Not the 12 people that the trial judge or someone else thinks should be seated."
· Anderson: Let's rethink how grand juries are selected· Judge denies Perry request for grand jury witnesses· Falkenberg: Another Jasper case, another pick-a-pal grand jury
