Grand jury law should aim for equal justice

The grand jury, that legal body of citizens who decide if there is enough evidence to indict someone on criminal charges, has been part of our justice system since the country’s founding.

Over the years, the scope of duties and the selection process for grand jurors have changed, particularly as states adopted their own procedures to fit individual criminal codes.

There has been continued concern about possible bias in the system, a charge that we’ve heard articulated often in the past few months in the wake of several police shootings in which the officer involved was not indicted.

The grand jury selection process most often used in Texas is one that that the Supreme Court declared in 1977 to be “highly subjective” and “susceptible to abuse.” Yet for criminal cases, this state remains the only one in the nation that still uses that process, commonly referred to as the “key-man” system.

It requires a district judge to appoint three to five “jury commissioners” who, in turn, select grand jurors for the term. In Tarrant County, which usually has two grand juries operating simultaneously, a term is three months and grand jurors generally report for duty twice a week.

Because the commissioners generally appoint people they know (“pick a pal,” it is sometimes called), the jurors selected are less ethnically diverse, have similar backgrounds and tend to be more favorable to law enforcement.

Most counties in Texas, including Tarrant, Dallas, Denton and Collin, use the key-man system while a few (including Bexar) have switched to the “random” system of selecting jurors, according to the Texas District & County Attorneys Association.

In that random system, sometimes called “the wheel,” potential grand jurors are summoned the same way petit jurors are picked for trials, producing a much more diverse pool from which to select.

The Texas Legislature is moving toward a switching the entire state to random selection, which works in the federal system.

Last week, a Senate committee approved a bill by Sen. John Whitmire, D-Houston, that would do away with the “key-man” process and allow randomly picked grand jurors to decide if a case has been made for indictment.

Whitmire thinks such a change would give the public more faith that the system is being fair.

While a fairer system is always the goal, legislators must understand that the random system presents another set of potential problems.

Regular jury service, in which citizens give up a day or two or three, can be a burden for those who are on hourly wages, have transportation problems or family issues. To demand they give up two days a week for three months to be on a grand jury is a lot to ask.

As legislation makes its way through the process, lawmakers need to make sure they examine all aspects and ramifications of the proposed changes.

Regardless of what system is used, all grand jurors must meet the same qualifications, and it should be up to the presiding judge to ensure fairness.

Whatever law is passed must have equal justice as its main tenet.

This story was originally published March 20, 2015 at 7:29 PM with the headline "Grand jury law should aim for equal justice."