MATTER OF WOOD v. Hughes

Chief Judge Desmond (dissenting).

I dissent. This decision deprives New York grand juries of a power and duty they have had for three centuries, strips an 80-year-old statute (Code Grim. Pro., § 253, subd. 2) of all meaning or effect, and ignores the prohibition of our State Constitution (art. I, § 6) against impairment of “ The power of grand juries to inquire into the wilful misconduct in office of public officers ”. It overrules the only previous New York appellate court holding on the subject (Matter of Jones v. People (101 App. Div. 55 [1905]). It approves the complete suppression of a…