COSTA MESA UNPLUGGED:

Sol Wachtler — the former chief judge of the New York Court of Appeals — is the chap who in 1985 coined a famous phrase that’s now a common arrow in the quiver of defense attorneys everywhere.

That year, Wachtler famously derided grand juries as being so intoxicated by the wiles of district attorneys that they’d “indict a ham sandwich” if so asked.

It occurs to me Wachtler left his putt short on that one. And not because of the irony of a Jew selecting a ham sandwich to illustrate his point. On that score, Wachtler later said he wished he had gone with a pastrami sandwich as his prop of choice.

Sorry, your honor. But you can’t unring the bell. Put the toothpaste back in the tube. Know what I mean?

Nevertheless, if the stunningly superficial and assumptive report by the Orange County Grand Jury on “The Anatomy of Safe and Sane Fireworks Sales in Orange County” released in April is any evidence, Wachtler could have elaborated further.

Indeed, he might have easily added that any ol’ taxpaying schlub can prod a grand jury to investigate a pig sandwich, too.

California is one of the few states in the nation whose Constitution mandates that each county impanel a grand jury. Apart from its power to hand down criminal indictments, its tool belt also carries the capacity to conduct “civil investigations.”

The Orange County Grand Jury’s April screed on safe and sane fireworks emerged from the ashes of one of these “civil investigations.” Specifically, it probed the continued sale of fireworks in Buena Park, Garden Grove, Santa Ana, Stanton and our very own Costa Mesa.

And it’s a dud.

The thing opens by waving around black-powder hyperbole. It opaquely sources “safety officials” who link the sale and use of safe and sane fireworks to the transformation of city streets — including those in our beloved Goat Hill — into “war zones.”

That’s right. War zones. Not unlike, say, Fallujah, Darfur or the rugged terrain along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. You know, places where blood runs in the streets and corpses litter them. I mean, if this is what safe and sane fireworks spawn, how about we arm our nation’s forces with Piccolo Petes, Purple Rain and Tequila Sunrise fountains.

Wait, though. It gets better. These same veiled sources indict safe and sane fireworks for their contributions to “the chaos of social disorder.”

The chaos of social disorder? Please. The intersection of Florence and Normandie avenues — the flash point of the Los Angeles riots following the Rodney King trial — was a crucible of social disorder. And I’m pretty sure there was quite a bit of social disorder running around Tiananmen Square back in 1989.

But to describe the streets of Costa Mesa as overrun by “the chaos of social disorder” during the Fourth of July is just specious nonsense.

Apart from its liberal use of wild characterizations and gross editorializing, the report narrates us through a litany of grand jury findings and recommendations that appear completely detached from the stated reason for the grand jury’s investigation.

On the one hand, we’re told the grand jury set out on this probe, in part, because “municipal and county safety agencies are constantly trying to combat ever-increasing social chaos, injuries to citizens and destruction of property that are by-products of legal fireworks sales.”

Of course, there’s no documenting evidence in the report to support just how safe and sane fireworks are contributing to this wholesale unwinding of our social order. And you need a permission slip from the presiding judge of the Superior Court to see that evidence.

But if mayhem, bodily injury and property destruction were the triggers for this particular look-see, then why didn’t the grand jury report on the inappropriate use of safe and sane fireworks? Why did it, instead, focus nearly exclusively on how fireworks wholesalers and the nonprofit organizations who sell them conduct their business? Why the rubber-glove examination of how the cities regulate and monitor legal fireworks sales?

These folks — and certainly their business practices — aren’t the ones placing fountains on step ladders or pinching Piccolo Petes. And they certainly aren’t selling bottle rockets and mortars.

From my reading, “The Anatomy of Safe and Sane Fireworks Sales in Orange County” summarizes a grand jury investigation that began with a pre-ordained conclusion peddled by “safety officials.” It offers recommendations with little or no relevance to its stated purpose for launching the probe.

If we’re to have grand juries with the power to expend public funds to conduct civil investigations, we should demand better than this.

BYRON DE ARAKAL is a former Costa Mesa Parks and Recreation Commissioner. Readers can reach him at [email protected].