Keeping Garner grand jury transcript secret could influence election(s)

Testimony heard by a New York grand jury in the death of Eric Garner will not be made public, according to a judge’s ruling. Garner, a Staten Island resident, died July 17 after being stopped by New York police and placed in a chokehold by NYPD officer Daniel Pantaleo. Garner was African-American, and his death at the hands of a white officer just months after the police shooting of Ferguson, Missouri, teen Michael Brown inspired nationwide demonstrations invoking Garner’s dying words, “I can’t breathe.”

The New York Civil Liberties Union and other interested parties had asked Staten Island District Attorney Daniel Donovan to release transcripts of the 2014 proceeding, but Donovan, after saying he wanted to make some information public, fought the NYCLU request in court.

State Supreme Court Judge William Garnett wrote that applicable laws required the plaintiffs to show a “compelling and particularized need” to open the grand jury proceedings. Garnett wrote the only reason for release he’d heard was “the possibility of effecting legislative change” — a need the judge called “purely speculative.”

Donovan argued that opening the records would damage the credibility of prosecutors, as well as that of grand jurors.

And therein lies another compelling — and quite particularized — need for releasing the jury transcripts. Because now, Dan Donovan is not just the sitting Staten Island DA, he is a Republican candidate for the United States House of Representatives.

Donovan is running to replace disgraced Rep. Michael Grimm, R, who resigned his 11th district seat after admitting to felony charges of tax evasion. As reported in January, Grimm’s early exit was likely on Donovan’s radar before he convened the Garner grand jury, and Donovan — long known to have political ambitions — made a point of referencing his respect for the police when he announced his candidacy.

Announcing as he did just days after the shooting deaths of two NYPD officers in Brooklyn, Donovan’s reference was not unwarranted — but it was also good politics. New York 11 is a predominantly non-Hispanic white district where some 75 percent of residents said they favored the job done by the police. This poll was taken soon after Garner’s death, and that support is in significant contrast to the 52 percent of all New Yorkers who shared that favorable impression.

Was Donovan’s performance behind the closed doors of the grand jury chamber influenced at all by his awareness of the particular makeup of a district he thought he might someday vie to represent? Would the voters of that district change their opinion of Donovan (the congressional candidate) if they knew how Donovan (the DA) conducted the hearing that, in the end, failed to indict anyone for Garner’s death?

NY 11 is overwhelmingly Republican, and so any revelation about any GOP candidate might not change the final outcome in the race. But because this is a special election where expected low turnout means even the shift of a few votes could affect the result, any information about the candidates could prove — what’s the word? — compelling.

And it has implications beyond the district. As Republican insiders observed when Grimm got out and Donovan got in, a GOP that already sees itself as having a racism problem — at least as perceived by a general electorate — does not really want to have to defend someone who failed to indict a white officer in the death of an unarmed African-American.

It might not have been the way the NYCLU presented it in court, but the need to see this grand jury transcript is particular not only to a congressional race this year, but pertinent to a general election next year.

The result of the election might be “speculative,” to use the judge’s phrase, but the implications of that result, and the debate that gets everyone there, seem of pretty certain import.

Certain and compelling.