NCJ Number
81544
Date Published
Unknown
Length
0 pages
Annotation
This videotaped segment of the judges' conferences records the reports of the Committee on Criminal Practice, the Committee on Domestic and Juvenile Relations, the Committee on Municipal Courts, and the Committee on Probation.
Abstract
The Committee on Criminal Practice proposes amendments that relate to grand jury proceedings and to the rules of evidence concerning prior inconsistent statements of a witness. It is proposed that the law allow juries to consider substantively earlier conflicting statements by witnesses to uphold the right of confrontation and to undo the effects of witness intimidation. The proposed changes in the conduct of grand jury hearings concern the deliberative phase and recommend that colloquies between jury members and the prosecutor be recorded in the minutes of the proceeding, and that the minutes be made accessible to the defendant during subsequent discovery. The intent of this recommendation is to dispel the mystique and attendant distrust of the grand jury proceedings by providing a mechanism for testing alleged misconduct. A matter of concern to the Committee on Domestic and Juvenile Relations is the age of transfer of juvenile offenders to adult court, since this affects the right of rehabilitation. It is recommended that judicial power extend to compelling the parents as well as the child to undergo treatment and counseling and imposing fines or service on the juveniles as part of restitution. The committee further requests that custody proceedings be removed from municipal courts and transferred to juvenile domestic relations courts with exclusive jurisdiction. As an intermediate step between incarceration and probation, the committee suggests the power to sentence juveniles to 90 days in a county youth center. The principal recommendation from the Committee on Municipal Courts requires that municipal prosecutors be present at every case tried in these courts. The spokeswoman for the Committee on Probation presents a case for the reorganization of the probation service, suggesting that it should be administered by an authority other than the county court judges, who are presently responsible for the service. For other conference segments, see NCJ 81541-43 and 81544.