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Last edited Sat Oct 13, 2012, 08:46 PM - Edit history (1)
Here's an analysis from 1984. Grand juries had been used to indict radicals on trumped-up charges going back to the Haymarket Riot, but the use of "investigative" grand juries was a product of the McCarthy era in the 1950s and (unsurprisingly) the current practice of forced immunity was instituted by the Nixon administration and then made a permanent fixture by the Reagan administration.
http://www.lawcollective.org/article.php?id=17
Following the example of the congressional investigating committees, prosecutors expanded the power of the grand jury to gather information against unpopular political activists and movements. The grand jurors were not being asked to review evidence already accumulated by the prosecution to determine whether such evidence was sufficient for an indictment -- the stated constitutional purpose of the grand jury. Rather, the primary purpose of these "investigative" grand juries was not to evaluate evidence but to discover it. Those subpoenaed before these "investigatory" grand juries were not witnesses to criminal activity but targets of the investigation and sources of political intelligence. . . .
Distressed by witnesses invoking this fundamental constitutional right of the fifth amendment, the government took steps to remove this obstruction. In 1954 Congress passed a special immunity law ("the Act"
, which applied only to matters of internal security. Upon a grant of transactional immunity approved by the Attorney General, the Act compelled a witness to give testimony before a congressional committee or a grand jury. This was the first time that legislation provided for compulsory testimony in return for immunity in an area concerning political thought and activity. . . .
The blatant use of the grand jury for harassment of political activists and intelligence gathering reached its height under the Nixon Justice Department. Between 1970-1973, over one hundred grand juries were convened in 84 cities; they subpoenaed over 1,000 activists. A special section of the Justice Department, Internatl Security [*1180] Division ("ISD" , which coordinated the various grand jury inquisitions, victimized all sectors of the anti-Vietnam war movement. Student activists, Vietnam veterans, the Catholic left, Weathermen, the anti-draft movement, and the academic community were all targets of grand juries. Other grand juries attacked the women's movement and the black nationalist movement. Armed with Title II of the Organized Crime Control Act of 1970, which allowed for the first time the conferring of [*1181] "use immunity" to supplant a witness' fifth amendment right, the Justice Department was able to carry out wide ranging political intelligence gathering.
