Williams v. Superior Court of San Joaquin Cnty.

*1025 On October 5, 2016, petitioner Darren Williams sought extraordinary writ relief in this court from the superior court's order denying his Penal Code section 995 motion to dismiss an indictment issued by a grand jury charging him with a series of cell phone store robberies. 1 Petitioner moved to dismiss the indictment on the basis that the deputy district attorney's excusal of a juror for hardship violated the grand jury's independence and rendered it improperly constituted. Petitioner also challenged the sufficiency of the evidence with respect to the gang allegations and counts regarding a March 10, 2014, robbery.

*290 In a published opinion, we concluded the superior court should have granted the motion to dismiss the indictment because the deputy district attorney's exercise of authority he did not have over the grand jury, in front of the grand jurors, substantially impaired the independence and impartiality of the grand jury. As such, we did not reach the sufficiency of the evidence claims. We issued a peremptory writ of mandate vacating the superior court's order denying petitioner's motion to dismiss the indictment and directing the court to enter a new order…