Cummiskey v. Superior Court

In Cummiskey v. Superior Court (1992) 3 Cal.4th 1018, the Supreme Court considered the standard of proof applicable to grand jury proceedings. The grand jury had been instructed that it should find an indictment if the evidence provided "'sufficient cause'" to believe that the defendant had committed a public offense. (Id. at p. 1025.) The instruction had defined "'sufficient cause'" as "'enough evidence to support a strong suspicion or probability of (1) the commission of the crime or crimes in question, and (2) the accused's guilt thereof.'" (Ibid.) The defendant contended that instead, the grand jury should have been instructed in the language of section 939.8. The California Supreme Court rejected the defendant's claim that section 939.8 provided a higher standard of proof for grand jury proceedings. "By including the phrase 'warrant a conviction by a trial jury,' the Legislature did not intend to equate a grand jury proceeding with a trial ... ." (Cummiskey, supra, 3 Cal.4th at p. 1026.) The court noted that the term "warrant" can mean "'justification or reasonable grounds for some act, course, statement, or belief.'" (Ibid.) The court further noted that an indictment is "'an accusation in writing, presented by the grand jury to a competent court, charging a person with a public offense.' Thus, under the statutory scheme, it is the grand jury's function to determine whether probable cause exists to accuse a defendant of a particular crime. In other words, the grand jury serves as part of the charging process of criminal procedure, not the adjudicative process that is the province of the courts or trial jury." (Ibid.) The Cummiskey court further noted that "'evidence which will justify a prosecution need not be sufficient to support a conviction.'" (Cummiskey, supra, 3 Cal.4th at p. 1027.) The court explained that "the grand jury's function in determining whether to return an indictment is analogous to that of a magistrate deciding whether to bind a defendant over to the superior court on a criminal complaint. Like the magistrate, the grand jury must determine whether sufficient evidence has been presented to support holding a defendant to answer on a criminal complaint. This is what section 939.8 means when it requires the grand jury to return an indictment when evidence would 'warrant a conviction by a trial jury.'" (Ibid.)