ROCKY FLATS GRAND JURY SUES TO TELL

[Aimee Houghton <aimeeh@igc.org>]

From: Aimee Houghton <aimeeh@igc.org>

The following article appeared in the Denver Post on Friday, August 2nd.

Aimee Houghton

ROCKY FLATS GRAND JURY SUES TO TELL ALL

"Eighteen members of the breakaway Rocky Flats grand jury returned to 
court yesterday, taking the extraordinary step of asking a federal 
judge to let them publicly disclose secret information about wrongdoing 
at the nuclear weapons plant.

"Four years after the U.S. Justice Department bypasses the grand jury -- 
and struck the government's own plea bargain with the former Rocky 
Flats contractor for environmental lawbreaking -- the jurors are 
seeking permission to talk about allegedly improper conduct by federal 
prosecutors and plant managers. Six jurors did not join in the action.

"The jurors took an oath of secrecy when they were empaneled in 1989 to 
investigate criminal law violations at the plutonium trigger factory 16 
miles northwest of downtown Denver. When the Justice Department 
settled the case in 1992, levying an $18.5 million fine against the 
plant operator, Rockwell International, jurors privately expressed 
anger tp reporters that no executives were charged with crimes.

"In 1,000 pages of court documents filed yesterday, grand jurors asked 
the court to waive their oaths of secrecy and sought a closed hearing 
on the matter.

""The court should lift the secrecy rule to let the public know the 
facts about Rocky Flats," said Jonathan Turley, the jurors' attorney 
and a professor at George Washington University in Washington (D.C.).

"Turley conceded that the statute of limitations almost certainly has 
expired on crimes investigated by Rocky Flats grand jurors. But he 
said it was important to affirm a legal principle that grand jurors 
should serve as independent investigators, not rubber-stamps for 
government prosecutors.

"Two years ago, Congress considered but never acted on a request by 
grand jurors to publicly testify about Rocky Flats. Rep. Pat Schroeder, 
D-Denver, filed an affidavit yesterday in support of the grand jurors.

"After splitting with federal prosecutors during the Rocky Flats probe, 
grand jurors drew up their own document that highlighted wrongdoing at 
the nuclear weapons plant. But in the process, they misapplied laws 
and made technical legal errors. A shortened version of that report, 
edited by yhe Justice Department and U.S. District Judge Serman 
Finesilver, was made public in 1993.

"Since then, several major civil lawsuits have been filed over Rocky 
Flats. Jurors now say they have information indicating that, in those 
lawsuits, "potentially false statements (have been) made by attorneys 
to federal courts."

"Jurors say the Justice Department obstrcted justice by refusing to 
help the citizens draw up a legally accurate report."