Frizzelle Plans Change in Bill on Grand Juries

SACRAMENTO —  Assemblyman Nolan Frizzelle (R-Huntington Beach) said Wednesday that he had agreed to author--but with extensive modifications--a controversial bill proposed by the Orange County Department of Education that would change the way grand juries operate.

Assemblywoman Doris Allen (R-Cypress) had considered introducing the bill but last month announced that she would not because she did not want to involve herself in the ongoing public dispute between the Orange County Grand Jury and the county Department of Education.

The bill that Allen rejected would have required grand juries to hear testimony from an agency under investigation and publish along with the panel’s findings a rebuttal written by the agency.

Frizzelle introduced that bill last Friday along with hundreds of others submitted by legislators on the deadline for introducing measures in this legislative session. But he said Wednesday that he took on the bill only after the Department of Education agreed to accept amendments narrowing its scope.

With those amendments, which are being drafted and will be introduced later, the bill will require only that the agency being investigated be allowed to submit facts supporting its case, Frizzelle said. The finished report would be submitted to the agency that was the target of the jury’s investigation at the same time that it was delivered to the county Board of Supervisors.

“This doesn’t go quite as far as the original,” Frizzelle said. “The original sought to force cooperation between the grand jury and the agencies investigated as to what was investigated and allowed them rebuttal. The very nature and mission of grand juries restricts any kind of measure that would eliminate the independence of grand juries to operate as they do.”

The bill is the idea of Robert Peterson, head of the Orange County Department of Education, who for years has charged that county grand juries have unfairly attacked his department in public reports.

Peterson could not be reached for comment Wednesday.