Breceda

Petitioners Mark Breceda, Abe De Dios, Manuel Garcia and Rosemary Ramirez seek a writ of prohibition following the trial court’s denial of their motion to dismiss an indictment on the ground that the district attorney’s office failed to adduce potentially exculpatory evidence to the grand jury as is required by Penal Code section 939.71. Petitioners contend that the indictment should therefore be dismissed. The People oppose the petition on several bases: (1) the legal issue is not ripe because the trial court did not make findings which could be the basis for a legal determination that section 939.71 applies; (2) the interoffice memorandum (which is one of two documents petitioners contend was exculpatory) was not exculpatory; (3) if the memorandum is deemed exculpatory, equivalent evidence was presented to the grand jury; (4) there has been no showing of substantial prejudice from the nondisclosure; and (5) the trial court’s interpretation of “prosecutor” under section 939.71, subdivision (a), to mean only the district attorneys presenting to the grand jury and not the entire office of the district attorney is correct for the purposes of grand jury proceedings.

We hold…