Grand jury in session, without usual backlog

By Peter H. Milliken

The Mahoning County panel starts nearly up to date on cases.

YOUNGSTOWN — When the new Mahoning County grand jury conducts its first session today, it will have no backlog of cases from prior years and only nine cases passed on to it from the grand jury that served for the first four months of this year.

This contrasts with the backlog of 39 cases, some dating back almost three years, that confronted the previous grand jury when it conducted its first meeting Jan. 8.

Judge R. Scott Krichbaum of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court, who was the grand jury judge for the first four months of this year, said he told Paul J. Gains, county prosecutor, that he wanted the backlog to be eliminated.

“I told him that I wanted it resolved completely before I was done with my term as grand jury judge,” Judge Krichbaum recalled.

The county’s five general-division common pleas judges serve four-month terms as grand jury judge on a rotating basis.

Judge John M. Durkin is the grand jury judge for the four-month period that will end Aug. 31. This period is known as the May 2009 grand jury term because of the month in which it begins. Grand jury terms begin in January, May and September of each year.

The Mahoning County grand jury meets and issues indictments every Thursday.

The grand jury judge or his or her magistrate presides over arraignments of people the grand jury has indicted on criminal charges.

The county prosecutor’s office presents criminal cases to the grand jury, which conducts closed-door sessions and decides in each case whether an indictment is justified.

“Sometimes, there are difficult issues in cases, so they are put on the back burner,” while easier cases are resolved, Judge Krichbaum said. The difficult ones may then remain unattended to, the judge said, explaining why he thought resolution of some cases was delayed.

“Some were dismissed, but most of them were presented to the grand jury, indicted and resolved, or, they were resolved by information,” Judge Krichbaum said of the laggard cases that had been on the grand jury’s docket.

A defendant who pleads guilty to an information waives a grand jury indictment.

The purpose of an information is to expedite a case rather than waiting for a grand jury indictment, Judge Krichbaum said. “When an information is filed, it is to be brought immediately before the court for disposition,” the judge added.

In some backlogged cases, an information was prepared but not presented to a judge, Judge Krichbaum noted.

In some cases, the defendant was scheduled to plead guilty to an information, but the plea hearing was postponed because the judge was unavailable, or because a defense lawyer had a scheduling conflict, explained Dawn Cantalamessa, chief of intake and chief trial counsel for the criminal division of the county prosecutor’s office.

In cases where a defendant had agreed to plead guilty to a bill of information, she would call the defense lawyer, make sure the defendant intended to follow through and get a plea hearing scheduled, Cantalamessa said.

In some of the backlogged cases, the prosecutor’s office awaited information from investigators or reports from the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Identification and Investigation, she said.

Most of the defendants in the delinquent cases were out of jail on bond, she said, adding that most of the backlog consisted of lower-level felonies and financial crimes.

“We weren’t letting murders sit by the wayside or anything like that,” Cantalamessa said.

“What we’re trying to do is not rush the justice system but just try to clear the docket some so we can concentrate on the upper-level felonies and the violent felonies,” Cantalamessa said.

“Waiting two or three or four years for a case to be resolved is a delay of justice, and, in my mind, it’s an unacceptable delay,” Judge Krichbaum concluded.

milliken@vindy.com

Grand jury: A group whose function is to review alleged offenses presented to it and determine whether there is probable cause to believe that a crime was committed and that the accused person committed it. If the grand jury makes both of those findings, it returns an indictment, also known as a “true bill.” If not, it declines to indict and returns a “no bill.’’

Indictment: A formal accusation made by a grand jury, charging a named person with a specific crime. In serious offenses, a suspect is entitled to indictment by a grand jury under both the United States and Ohio constitutions.

Information: A formal written accusation made by a prosecutor, charging a named person with a specific crime. An information may be used instead of an indictment, except to charge offenses carrying a potential penalty of death or life imprisonment, but it cannot be used in any case unless the accused waives indictment.

No bill: A rejected indictment.

Probable cause: The level of proof at which there is good reason to believe, based on specific evidence, that a specific accusation is true. It is the level of proof required to support an arrest, indictment or search warrant. It is also the lowest degree of proof normally used in a legal proceeding.

True bill: An indictment that has been issued.

Source: The Ohio State Bar Association’s Legal Handbook for Ohio Journalists