People v. Walker

Defendants in this matter raise a number of significant issues regarding the propriety of the citizens’ grand jury and allied proceedings in the instant case which culminated in their serving sentences for two instances of civil contempt for a period of more than one year. The single dispositive question we resolve today is whether defendants can properly be imprisoned for two terms totaling a sentence of more than one year for failure to answer the same or similar questions before the same grand jury, once sitting in "regular” session and once in recalled session, after the Legislature, in…