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Cases in the Grand Jury (46)
Only two of forty-one cases (and McInerney twice) were dismissed by the grand jury (the outcome is unknown in four cases). However, it voted indictments for felony charges in only seventeen cases. In the remaining twenty-two cases the grand jury instead voted informations for misdemeanor charges. A misdemeanor charge was not what prosecutors sought when they sent a case to the grand jury. Individuals could be sent for trial on misdemeanor charges direct from the magistrates court: twenty of those arrested in the disorder were dealt with in that way. In not charging twenty-two individuals referred to them with a felony, the grand jury determined that police had not gathered evidence to support the initial charge. But rather than dismiss the charges entirely and release those individuals, they instead reduced the charges, sending them to the Court of Special Sessions for prosecution as nonetheless involved in the disorder.
While the grand jury ultimately did not indict any of those charged with riot in the Magistrates court, it did initially vote felony charges in the first cases brought before it as part of District Attorney Dodge's investigation, including those of Daniel Miller and the three Young Liberators. However, the next day Dodge had to amend the charges to a misdemeanor, unlawful assembly. New York law specified two felony forms of riot, one involving acts focused on public officers and the enforcement of the law, individuals armed with weapons or disguised that did not apply, and one involving "acts of force and violence." In the case of Miller and the Young Liberators, there was no evidence that they called for violence. Following that decision, all but one of the other nine cases of riot brought to the grand jury with a known outcome resulted in the same misdemeanor charges. Those cases were referred by Magistrates and the grand jury hearings occurred after the end of Dodge's investigation. Six of the others charged later - Leon Mauraine, James Pringle, David Smith, John Kennedy Jones, Bernard Smith and Leroy Brown - allegedly called for windows to be broken, which would seem to fit the felony definition. However, the statute required that the offender "directs, advises, encourages or solicits" that violence, a direct connection lacking in those cases. Instead, the charges referred only to subsequent attacks on businesses in the vicinity. The misdemeanor of unlawful assembly, by contrast, required only that an offender "threaten" an act. Claude Jones and William Ford allegedly called for attacks on police, but the charges against them made no reference to acts of violence against police, circumstances that appeared to fit the threats referred to in the definition of unlawful assembly better than the acts in the definition of riot. In the final case, John King allegedly refused to move on when ordered to by a police officer, circumstances that section 2093 of the statute defined as a misdemeanor form of riot and unlawful assembly. Magistrate Renaud appears to have made a mistake in not sending King directly to the Court of Special Sessions.
In the cases of ten of the twenty-four individuals arrested for looting, the grand jury voted misdemeanor charges instead of the felony of burglary charged in the Magistrates courts. All of those cases were heard after the end of Dodge's investigation; the grand jury voted indictments charging felonies in all of the cases of those arrested for looting presented as part of the District Attorney's investigation, eleven of the fourteen indictments. That preponderance might indicate that prosecutors pushed for more serious charges to deliver results for the investigation, or simply that the cases where the evidence was strongest were the first to be heard. The grand jury heard twenty cases after the first week of legal proceedings, from March 29, and voted misdemeanor charges in all but one. A charge of burglary required breaking into a store, entering it, and taking merchandise; a lesser charge resulted from the absence of evidence of one or more of those elements. Two possible misdemeanor charges were brought against individuals arrested for looting in the Magistrates courts, unlawful entry, which involved entering property but only the intent to commit a crime, and petit larceny, which involved taking items without breaking and entering a property. As those arrested for looting invariably allegedly had items in their possession, it is likely that petit larceny was the charge voted by the grand jury. In the case of Louis Cobb, the charge of petit larceny was recorded in the District Attorney's case file. A police officer had seen him leaving a liquor store with several bottles of spirits, but there was no evidence that he had broken into the store. Lawrence Humphrey and Leroy Gillard were arrested in similar circumstances, after police officers saw them leaving stores carrying items taken from inside. The absence of evidence of breaking and entering is clearer in the cases of the seven other men the grand jury charged with misdemeanors. Police arrested them at locations other than the stores they had allegedly looted, including Daughty Shavos, arrested at his home the evening after the disorder.
Another man arrested for looting the evening after the disorder, Clifford Mitchell, was one of the two men whose cases the grand jury dismissed. While there was no mention of how police came to make the arrest, items found in Mitchell's home that Louis Levy identified as coming from his store were identified in the legal record as evidence against him. The dismissal of the charges likely means that Levy's identification was called into question. The second case dismissed by the grand jury involved Bernard Smith, charged with riot. Given that an additional charge of breaking windows had been reduced to disorderly conduct, and punished by a sentence of only five days in the workhouse or a fine of $25, it seems likely that police did not have compelling evidence to support their allegation that Smith had been responsible for crowds breaking windows.