Grand Jury for Corcoran Officers?

[Blue Fish]

By Denny Boyles
The Fresno Bee

(Updated Friday, March 26, 2004, 5:25 AM)

The investigation into the Feb. 2 death of Corcoran State Prison inmate Ronald Herrera appears headed for a grand jury.

Herrera bled to death in his prison cell on Super Bowl Sunday night, prompting accusations that correctional officers had been too busy watching the game to come to his aid. Prison officials and the correctional officers union have denied those claims.

Thursday, several correctional officers from Corcoran were reportedly served with grand jury summonses compelling them to testify in the case.

The investigation stalled recently over a dispute about taping interviews between district attorney investigators and the officers. The Kings County District Attorney's Office has a policy that all interviews be taped by district attorney investigators. Those tapes are kept in a secure location until the investigation is complete, and then copies are made available to anyone involved in the case.

Lance Corcoran, spokesman for the California Correctional Peace Officers Association, said CCPOA members had asked the district attorney that they also be allowed to tape the interviews, and had been refused. Corcoran said his officers even offered to let the district attorney investigators keep the extra tapes in sealed envelopes, but that offer also had been refused.

"It's unfortunate that the district attorney has chosen to take this direction," Corcoran said. "We were willing to speak to their investigators under certain parameters. Apparently, the DA wasn't satisfied with our offer. It's very unfortunate because the grand jury is going to cost that county money they don't have."

Kings County Chief Deputy District Attorney Patrick Hart confirmed Thursday that a grand jury had been convened but wouldn't say whether it was related to the Herrera case.

"All I can say is that a grand jury investigation has been initiated, but I am prohibited by law from discussing the details," Hart said. "Until the grand jury returns indictments or concludes its investigation, I won't be able to comment."

Hart did say he knew about the CCPOA offer regarding the interviews, but the proposal came "too late in the game."

"They did make a proposal to us, but at that point we'd already moved on to step two," Hart said.

Hart added that if CCPOA wanted to save Kings County money, it would have cooperated with investigators.

"It's ludicrous for them to say we shouldn't spend the money on a grand jury," Hart said. "We've already had to spend money on setting interviews that they have canceled and in traveling to meetings that they have skipped."

The reporter can be reached at

dboyles@fresnobee.com or 622-2411.