Grand Jury FOIA Documents

The Civil Liberties Defense Center (cldc.org) filed a FOIA (Wikipedia) regarding the Grand Jury. They received a response, the documents to which are attached below. The cover letter states, “The federal judiciary is exempt from both the federal Freedom of Information Act and the Privacy Act of 1974.” Regardless, the respondent attached a copy of a summons the court sends to prospective grand jurors, a cover letter, the order directing the empanelment of the grand jury, a grand juror’s handbook, and a model of the directions given to grand jurors.

These documents appear to be similar to the ones we imagine were given to the grand jurors in this case, but they differ in at least one notable detail. One document refers to the duration of the grand jury as 18 months. This is true in the case of normal grand juries. The grand jury investigating the May Day attack on the federal courthouse is, however, a special grand jury with a 24 month duration.

• Model Directions to Grand Jurors (pdf)
• Handbook for Federal Grand Jurors (pdf)
• Grand Juror Summons (pdf)
• Cover Letter (pdf)
• Court Order to Empanel Grand Jury (pdf)
• We also received a September 25, 2012 email to Lauren Regan from Bill McUnCool simply stating, “Dear Ms. Regan – the empanelment date for the Grand Jury was March 2, 2012.” The document came as a docx, and I have no desire to inflict Microsoft upon anyone.