Gov. Ron DeSantis recently signed a bill that could reveal what happened when Florida prosecutors went behind closed doors and ended up offering a ridiculous sweetheart deal to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Good. Answers are way overdue. The way Epstein’s case was originally handled is considered one of this state’s highest-profile cases of perverted justice.
A supremely wealthy man with connections to everyone from Bill Clinton to Donald Trump was accused of abuse by more than a dozen girls and young women. Yet state and federal prosecutors used secretive grand jury proceedings to emerge with a deal that was so lax, Epstein received a short stint in jail where he wasn’t even required to stay behind bars and was instead allowed to visit his West Palm Beach office six days a week.
It wasn’t until a decade later — after the Miami Herald documented the favoritism at play — that federal prosecutors in New York went after Epstein again, saying he had to account for a litany of crimes against minors.
For nearly 20 years, victims wondered what really happened in Florida and why it took prosecutors in another state to go after Epstein with zeal. But so far, those victims been unable to find out, because the law says grand jury proceedings should remain secret.
Democrats and Republicans in the Legislature united to correct that, calling for release of the records. But I submit that the push for transparency and accountability shouldn’t end there.
Florida and other states should stop relying so heavily on grand jury secrecy in general — as secrecy is never good for public trust.
In signing the bill to unseal the grand jury documents in the Epstein case, DeSantis said: “Nobody should be protected from facing justice due to their wealth or status.”
That is absolutely true. But that doesn’t just go for Jeffrey Epstein.
It should go for wealthy CEOs accused of stealing from taxpayers, politicians accused of corruption and police officers accused of falsifying excuses for shooting an unarmed suspect.
All of these folks should have to account for their actions — in public.
Think about it. If you get arrested and charged with a crime, the odds are that the wheels of justice will churn for all the world to see. That’s how most jury processes work — in public where everyone is allowed to see the evidence presented. Yet too often, when people of “status” face accusations, prosecutors turn to grand juries where they can operate behind closed doors.
We’ve seen controversial examples in this community — such as when a state attorney went behind closed doors with a case where Orange County deputies fired 137 rounds at a suspected car thief, killing him and sending bullets ricocheting through a populated apartment complex.
When then-prosecutor Lawson Lamar emerged from the grand jury, he said jurors concluded the officers acted appropriately.
Yet a federal judge would later reach a blisteringly different conclusion, calling the shooting “more akin to an execution than an attempt to arrest an unarmed suspect.”
So how did a grand jury — guided by a prosecutor — reach such a different conclusion? Thanks to antiquated secrecy laws, you have no right to know.
Judge: Take-down of suspected car thief ‘akin to an execution’
There are legitimate reasons to keep some grand jury details concealed while a case is ongoing, including the identities of suspects who might skip town if they learn they’ll soon be arrested. But there’s no good reason to keep that secret after a case has concluded.
Additional valid concerns, such as revealing the identities of victims or witnesses, could be addressed by redacting that information from the public reports with precision. Right now, it’s the other way around. Everything is kept secret unless otherwise decreed.
The process is so secretive that current prosecutors can’t even find out what their predecessors learned from grand juries. We saw that just this past week when Orange County’s former prosecutor expressed frustration that her successor chose to overrule a decision to prosecute a deputy who shot an unarmed man without knowing why a previous grand jury thought the deputy should face charges.
Even when grand jurors believe a prosecutor misrepresents what took place behind closed doors, they aren’t allowed to speak up and correct the record. (One in Minnesota actually filed a lawsuit asking for the right to clarify what happened in the proceedings. The juror’s request was denied.)
For all these reasons, some prosecutors avoid using grand juries in controversial cases where they know public confidence is on the line. That’s a good lead-in to three ways to improve the system.
1) Prosecutors should take fewer cases to grand juries, especially high-profile ones. It makes sense to use a secretive process for an ongoing investigation into an organized crime ring, when witness safety is at risk or when a systemic problem is being probed. But not just because a powerful person is involved. Or because a prosecutor wants cover for making a tough decision.
2) When grand juries are convened, they should issue detailed, public reports about what they heard and concluded, as a local one did recently when probing the shooting death of unarmed shoplifting suspects by Osceola County deputies. In that case, the grand jury issued a report that said the shooting “should not have happened” and detailed what it learned. The goal there was as it should always be — transparency instead of secrecy.
3) Revise the rules for grand juries to demand more disclosure. Don’t start with the presumption of secrecy. Start with a goal of transparency and only censor information when things like safety or ongoing investigations are at risk.
DeSantis said he would be open to some reform ideas to “get the truth so we can pursue justice.” That should always be the goal.
