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<font size=3><br><br>
</font><font face="Arial, Helvetica" size=3><b>Citizens fear predatory
grand jury investigations.<br>
</b></font><font face="Arial, Helvetica" size=2>BY ORNA
IZAKSON</font><font size=3> <br><br>
There's one really important thing Jennifer Woodruff wants a reporter to
know: "I know nothing about the fire."<br><br>
The fire in question was in the spring of 2001, the second arson at a
Romania car dealership in Eugene, lit by someone ostensibly intending to
support activists Jeffrey "Free" Luers and Craig
"Critter" Marshall as they were prosecuted for torching Romania
vehicles two years earlier.<br><br>
Knowing nothing about the fire is important to Woodruff — a single mother
living in the Whiteaker with her 9-and-a-half-year-old son — because any
week know she expects a grand jury to force her to answer questions about
it. More to the point, the grand jury can also compel her to disclose any
details it wants about her law-abiding friends in a secret proceeding,
without her lawyer present. If she refuses, she could face half a year in
jail, separated from her son, potentially losing her housing and her job.
<br><br>
Grand juries meet in secret to gather evidence in support of officially
indicting someone for a crime. The secrecy is intended to protect both
witnesses and those erroneously thought to be involved with the crime.
<br><br>
But grand juries also have been used throughout their history as a
secretive, threatening weapon against activists — on causes ranging from
peace and independence to the environmental and animal rights movements.
Activists subpoenaed to appear before the juries find themselves faced
with the choice of relinquishing their right to privacy and free
political association or months of jail time for contempt of
court.<br><br>
"We're living in a time period when big brother is attempting to get
stronger and stronger, and will cloak itself in as much legitimacy as it
can," say Lauren Regan, local attorney and executive director of the
Eugene-based Civil Liberties Defense Center. "By calling it a grand
jury investigation, there is some legitimacy to dragging law abiding
citizens into court like McCarthy-era inquisitions to give up information
on their neighbors or their political associates."<br><br>
"If it's secret and government power is unlimited, there are no
checks and balances; they're able to get away with a lot of abuses of our
civil liberties," she says.<br><br>
Government investigators turn to grand juries, activists charge, to
compel testimony when traditional, informal questioning is rebuffed. And
often, Regan explains, the questions asked in secrecy are very general,
having little to do with the crime ostensibly being
investigated.<br><br>
"Sometimes they really are as broad as 'do you know this
person,'" she says. That "puts the person who is subpoenaed in
just a terrible position. You then have to give up personal information
about someone who is potentially a friend of yours without knowing what
they're getting at, why they're asking for information about that
person."<br><br>
And, she adds, the witness "has no right whatsoever not to
answer."<br><br>
That's what Woodruff faces in upcoming weeks. "It's just a crappy
decision to have to make," whether to comply or face jail, she says.
<br><br>
At one point, she and two other women who'd been called to appear were
offered a deal: an informal interview in which each could have her lawyer
in the room, after which she'd sign an affidavit about her
testimony.<br><br>
Woodruff says she was so scared that she initially agreed. "That was
the first time I cried," she explains, "when I said yes. I
bawled for giving in. It felt really wrong in my gut. So in the morning I
said called my lawyer and I said no. It's kind of like, if someone's
going to screw you, you're not going to volunteer to let them screw
you."<br><br>
In the end, Woodruff says, the woman who agreed to the informal interview
had to appear before the grand jury anyway, where she was asked not only
to confirm her affidavit but also questioned "quite a bit"
further.<br><br>
"They tried to fool us," she concludes.<br><br>
"If you watch the behavior of a predator like a shark, that's kind
of how they behave," she says. "They come in and they circle
you, and then they nudge you and see how you react. Then they retreat,
and then they come in for the kill. They subpoena you and they drive by
your house at least once a week with all your friends around, listen in
on your phone conversations."<br><br>
Woodruff says she hasn't fully decided what she'll do when she gets a
final date to appear before the grand jury. She says she has community
support for her son should she end up jailed for refusing to comply. And
while she prefers to think as little as possible about the coming ordeal,
she remains philosophical about it.<br><br>
"As Americans, as resisters to anything, the biggest thing we have
to worry about is incarceration, and granted that's a horrible
experience." But, she adds, jail "is nothing in comparison to
what people are having to deal with in Iraq right now, and many other
places. The human rights violations that happen in other countries are
devastating. And all we have to worry about, really, is getting locked
up."<br><br>
U.S. Attorney Kirk Engdall did not respond to an interview request for
this story. <br>
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<font size=3 color="#FF0000">The Freedom Archives<br>
522 Valencia Street<br>
San Francisco, CA 94110<br>
(415) 863-9977<br>
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