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 After an unusually lengthy session lasting nine weeks, the grand
jury voted in December not to indict the police officer, Daniel
Pantaleo, for his role in the death of Eric Garner on a Staten
Island sidewalk last summer.
Captured on video, Garner's repeated cries of "I can't breathe!" as
Pantaleo holds him by his neck have become a slogan for protesters
at rallies across the United States who accuse police forces of
being hostile towards black citizens.
The groups asking for the records to be made public say they are
expecting a tough legal battle in a case that has drawn the
attention of U.S. President Barack Obama and his Justice Department.
But, they say, it is important to show how the grand jury came to
its conclusion, and possibly expose flaws in the secrecy-shrouded
process.
 Grand jury proceedings, which are led by the prosecutor, are secret
by law. The New York Civil Liberties Union, the city's public
advocate, the Legal Aid Society and the New York Post have each
filed petitions in State Supreme Court in Staten Island arguing that
an exception should be made in the Garner case.
The United States is one of very few countries to still use grand
juries to decide whether to indict someone with a crime. The system
has come under renewed scrutiny with the cases of Garner and of
Michael Brown, an unarmed black teenager killed by a white police
officer last August in Ferguson, Missouri.
In the Brown case, a St. Louis County grand jury voted in November
not to indict the officer, Darren Wilson, for killing Brown. In both
cases, protesters and some elected officials were angered that there
would be no public trials, sparking a new wave of street rallies in
recent weeks.
Donna Lieberman, the NYCLU's executive director, said overcoming the
presumption of secrecy will be an uphill fight.
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"We are all concerned about the failure of a secret process to
provide any vehicle for accountability in the case of Eric Garner,"
Lieberman said. "It has raised serious questions about the ongoing
viability of the grand jury process as it is currently structured."
In the case in Ferguson, the county prosecutor decided to publicly
release most of the transcripts from the proceedings and evidence he
presented to the grand jury.
Daniel Donovan, Jr., the district attorney who handled the Garner
case, has said New York's law is tougher than in Missouri, although
a judge allowed him to say how many witnesses were called and
whether or not they were civilians. His spokesman declined to
comment on the petitions, which are before Judge William Garnett.
(Reporting by Jonathan Allen; editing by Andrew Hay)
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