Kicked off a grand jury, former ACLU lawyer seeks reinstatement
A former lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union of Missouri has filed legal action seeking reinstatement as a St. Louis County grand juror after a judge allegedly kicked him off at the request of the prosecutor.
The petition for a writ of prohibition, filed with the Missouri Court of Appeals on Friday, claims the removal violated Missouri law, report the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, the Associated Press, the Washington Post (sub. req.) and the St. Louis Business Journal. The petition was filed on the grand juror’s behalf by the American Civil Liberties Union of Missouri. Court documents are listed here.
The petition says Circuit Judge Steven Goldman removed the grand juror, identified by the pseudonym John Roe, on Sept. 28 after Prosecuting Attorney Robert McCulloch complained. Roe was serving as foreman before his removal.
According to the petition, McCulloch told Goldman that Roe had represented plaintiffs suing police over actions taken during Ferguson protests. McCulloch also mistakenly said that Roe had been involved in a suit challenging McCulloch’s handling of grand jury proceedings involving Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson, who was not indicted in the death of Michael Brown, the petition alleges.
The petition claims the removal interfered with Roe’s constitutional right to serve as a grand juror and was retaliation for First Amendment-protected activities. It also claims the removal was not authorized by Missouri law, which allows challenges to ground jurors who are prosecutors or witnesses for the prosecution.
“Missouri’s statutes spell out when an already sworn-in grand juror can be removed, and none of them justify the removal of this grand juror,” said Tony Rothert, legal director of the ACLU of Missouri, in a statement published in the Post-Dispatch. “Grand juries are supposed to be independent bodies. Allowing the prosecuting attorney to change the grand jury mid-term is antithetical to the notion that grand juries are independent.”
