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Grand jury thinks it shouldn't have been called

By Randall Hodgkinson

Here is the Olathe News article reporting that when the grand jury called by petition in Johnson County to investigate possible abortion crimes returned no indictment, it also called for review of the statute by which it was called. In fact, there is no showing required to call a grand jury by petition under K.S.A. 22-3001(2), just a comparatively small number of elector signatures.

And in other counties, prosecutors have used the grand jury to indict persons for matters wholly unrelated to the purpose explicitly stated in the petitions seeking the grand jury. I'm working on one of those cases right now.

I think I agree with the that some review of that statute might be appropriate, both for a slightly different standard for calling the grand jury and for limiting the purpose of the grand jury (or clarifying that petition circulators cannot be represent that the grand jury is called for a specific purpose).

Full post as published by Kansas Defenders on March 06, 2008 (boomark / email).