About
About This Site
What is civilgrandjury.org?
This site is the first comprehensive, searchable archive of California County Civil Grand Jury reports. For the first time, reports from all 58 California counties have been collected, extracted, and indexed in a single place, making decades of grand jury work easy to search, browse, and reference.
Each report includes extracted findings and recommendations, information about which agencies were asked to respond, and links to the original PDF documents from official county sources.
Our goal is to increase transparency and public access to the important oversight work performed by California's civil grand juries.
What is a California Civil Grand Jury?
Source: California Courts
California is unique among most other states in that we have an independent body called a Civil Grand Jury. Each of California's 58 counties convenes a group of citizens annually who take an oath to investigate local government operations.
The primary function involves examining how county officers, departments, and agencies conduct their work. Grand jurors themselves select which governmental entities merit investigation during their tenure, making them truly independent oversight bodies.
Beyond their investigative role, civil grand juries also handle criminal indictments and can investigate allegations of public official misconduct. Their fact-finding efforts center on producing written reports with recommendations to improve government accountability and responsiveness to residents.
Under California Penal Code 933, government agencies named in grand jury reports are required to respond within 60-90 days, either agreeing with findings, disagreeing with explanation, or committing to implement recommendations.
Who Hosts This Site?
This site is created and maintained by UnGovr.org, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization dedicated to government transparency. UnGovr crawls, processes, and indexes public records from U.S. government agencies, making them searchable and accessible to the public.
We built this site because grand jury reports contain valuable insights into local government operations, but they're often scattered across dozens of different county websites in various formats. By collecting them in one place, we hope to make it easier for journalists, researchers, government watchdogs, and engaged citizens to find and use this information.
This service is provided free of charge as a public benefit. We have no affiliation with any county government or the California courts system.
This website contains public documents. While the design, layout, and original content of this site are copyrighted, the public domain documents reproduced herein are not subject to exclusive copyright ownership.
Become a Civil Grand Juror
California residents can volunteer to serve on their county's civil grand jury. Jurors typically serve one-year terms and play a vital role in civic oversight. Most counties follow a July-to-June fiscal year, though some use a calendar year (January-December). The Civil Grand Jurors’ Association of California (CGJA) provides resources for prospective jurors.