Grand Jury Indictment Versus Prosecution by Information--An Equal Protection-Due Process Issue
![handle is hein.journals/hastlj25 and id is 1023 raw text is: Grand Jury Indictment Versus Prosecution
by Information-An Equal Protection-
Due Process Issue
By RicHARD P. ALBXANDER* and SHELDON PORTMAN**
FOLLOWING almost two hundred years of continuous and unwaver-
ing support of -the institution we know as the grand jury, the United
States Supreme Court recently announced an opinion which suggests
the first leak in the dike of its regard for that once exalted institution.
Speaking for the six-member majority in United States v. Dionisio,'
Justice Stewart acknowledged that [t]he grand jury may not always
serve its historic role as a protective bulwark standing solidly between
the ordinary citizen and an overzealous prosecutor . .. 2 Even
stronger expressions of concern over the continuing viability of the
grand jury are found in the dissenting opinions of Justices Douglas
and Marshall. Justice Douglas observed: It is, indeed, common
knowledge that the Grand Jury, having been conceived as a bulwark
between the citizen and the Government, is now a tool of the Execu-
tive.'3 Justice Marshall emphasized the dangers facing grand jury in-
dependence as compounded by the Dionisio decision itself.4
* B.A., Ohio Wesleyan University, 1966; J.D., University of Chicago, 1969;
Member of Michigan Bar and California Bar; Member, Board of Governors, California
Attorneys for Criminal Justice; Member of the firm of Boccardo, Blum, Lull, Niland,
Teerlink & Bell of San Francisco.
** B.A., Kent State University, 1952; LL.B., (Case) Western Reserve University
School of Law, 1954; Member of Ohio Bar and California Bar; admitted to practice
before the Supreme Court of the United States; Public Defender, Santa Clara County,
California; Director, National Legal Aid and Defense Association and Western Re-
gional Defender Association; Vice-Chairman of the Defense Services Committee of the
ABA Section on Criminal Law; Past-president, California Public Defenders Associa-
tion; Member of Board of Governors, California Attorneys for Criminal Justice.
1. 410 U.S. 1 (1973).
2. Id. at 17.
3. Id. at 23.
4. Id. at 45-47.
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Grand Jury Indictment Versus Prosecution by Information--An Equal Protection-Due Process Issue
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