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While Judge Edward Sosnick's investigation into the “fake” Tea Party  shenanigans is probably the first time most people even heard the term one-man grand jury, this legal tool was used to attack political corruption before. In fact, a one-man grand jury was responsible for one of Detroit’s biggest anti-corruption cases ever.

According to a May 6, 1940 Time Magazine article, Circuit Court Judge Homer Ferguson was empanelled as a one-man grand jury to investigate public corruption under former Detroit Mayor Richard Reading. Ferguson implicated Wayne County prosecutor Duncan McCrea in a multi-million dollar baseball betting operation. That's when the case took a decidedly Dirty Harry-esque turn:

Righteously indignant, Mr. McCrea attempted a raid on Judge Ferguson's grand-jury chamber, alleging that witnesses had been tortured until they squealed. The judge's guards slammed the door on McCrea's deputies, stuffed the judge's records into a vault. Next day. Judge Ferguson produced a second dripping forkful. Gambling dens, bawdy houses, running wide open in Detroit and Hamtramck, had long enjoyed official cooperation, said he. Among many officials, he specifically indicted Prosecutor Duncan McCrea.

Frantic was the scurrying in Detroit. Judge Ferguson slapped a bond on all those he had accused (including Mr. McCrea), held them for trial, continued his hearings. Last week he came up with the biggest gobbet of all.

On a charge of conspiring to protect and operate policy houses (which did an estimated $10,000,000 annual business in Detroit and have been operating unscathed for more than ten years), Judge Ferguson indicted 151 persons, including ten police lieutenants, 34 sergeants, 37 patrolmen, six detectives, Negro John Roxborough (comanager of Heavyweight Champion Joe Louis), pompous ex-Mayor Dick Reading—and Prosecutor McCrea.

Apologies to Messrs. Strunk and White for Time's cumbersome writing style. Anyway, I’d like to think that after the case was finished a superior chewed Ferguson out for violating departmental regulations and spending the taxpayers money. As Judge Ferguson turns to leave, his boss says to the streetwise-jurist-who-gets-results: “And one more thing, Homer, I like your style.” Fade up funky jazz score and roll credits.

If the name Homer Ferguson (who eventually became a U.S. Senator) sounds familiar then you’re probably a fan of lesser Francis Ford Coppala films. Lloyd Bridges portrayed him (with middling historical accuracy) as the Big Three’s lackey in Washington in the 1988 Preston Tucker biopic Tucker: The Man and His Dream.