Better path to justice

California has just become the first state in the nation to expressly ban the grand jury process for police use-of-force cases. Gov. Jerry Brown signed SB227, a bill that prohibits the practice, on Tuesday.

The employment of grand juries in police use-of-force cases came under intensified scrutiny last year after prosecutors in Ferguson, Mo., and Staten Island, N.Y., gave grand juries the power to make decisions about whether to indict police officers who had killed unarmed black men. Those grand juries worked in secret, and their non-indictments sparked protests around the country.

Under SB227, California prosecutors will have to make the decision about these highly contested indictments themselves. The law will grant the public transparency in these important cases, and force prosecutors to have accountability for their choices.

This is fair, and in the long run, it should lead to the right outcome in California.

“There is no evidence that law-abiding, oath-taking peace officers would want anything different than private citizens when it comes to their rights under the law,” said state Sen. Holly Mitchell, D-Los Angeles, the author of SB227.

Secret legal hearings for controversial cases can destroy the public’s trust in the legal process. These cases are particularly sensitive because of the disparate treatment for African Americans and other racial minorities in our legal system.

The new law isn’t exactly revolutionary, either.

Many California district attorneys — like those in Santa Clara and Los Angeles counties — are already deciding law-enforcement indictments for themselves. Meanwhile, the state of Connecticut doesn’t use grand juries for any criminal indictments.

SB227 won’t eliminate controversy over police useof-force cases. The tinderbox of crime, equity, and justice issues that erupt around the most controversial of these cases is far too combustible for one bill to solve. But it will require prosecutors to account for these decisions, rather than giving them the all-too-easy option to do so outside of the public eye.