6 ms·

But trial by jury continues to be used in several countries (maybe in more restricted ways but it still a thing) or is there something special about a "Grand Ju

But trial by jury continues to be used in several countries (maybe in more restricted ways but it still a thing) or is there something special about a "Grand Jury"?

homero 6y ago
Yes a grand jury is just the prosecutor and jury. It's secret and the defendant doesn't even know. It's a way to start a case, not sure when a prosecutor needs or doesn't need a grand jury.
- NovemberWhiskey 6y ago
  It's usually the misdemeanor / felony boundary.
- at-fates-hands 6y ago
  There are reasons in which it is an appropriate or desirable alternative to a preliminary hearing. The California Grand Jury Association cites multiple surveys that have been taken of California district attorneys, who listed the following factors as influential in the decision to seek a grand jury indictment rather than using the preliminary hearing: • High public interest in the case; • The fact that a preliminary hearing would take more time than a grand jury hearing; • The necessity for calling children or timid witnesses who would be subject to cross‑examination at a preliminary hearing; • The ability to test a witness before a jury; • Where the secrecy of the grand jury may allow defendants to be charged and taken into custody before they can pose potential danger to a witness' safety or flee from the jurisdiction; • Where the identity of undercover agents needs to be protected; • The existence of a weak or doubtful case which the district attorney wishes to test; • The opportunity to involve the community in case screening; and • Whether the case involves malfeasance in office. https://www.pooleshaffery.com/news/2014/december/a-crash-course-in-the-american-grand-jury-system/ https://www.pooleshaffery.com/news/2014/december/a-crash-cou...
  - wildfire 6y ago
    Thanks for the list, I still would like to understand why a Grand Jury needs to exist when our countries, presumably, also have the same set of problems but not a Grand Jury. I wonder how other common law systems handle this (not a lawyer, am genuinely asking).
Dah00n 6y ago
To add to the other comment a Grand Jury is also often made up of jurors called in using the prosecutor's private phone contacts. A few ex-cops and former work buddies. People also go to jail because of misuse of power by grand juries. There's a great documentary on Netflix but I can't remember its name right now. Suffice to say there aren't grand juries in any well working and fair justice system. It's abuse and/or theater 100% of the time.
- Red_Leaves_Flyy 6y ago
  Are you thinking of strong island? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strong_Island_(film) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strong_Island_(film)
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- korethr 6y ago
  I will offer a counter-example to this. I was an alternate for my local county's grand jury for a year. I was selected through the same voir dire process used to place me on a petit jury for a criminal trial years later. It was wholly random. AFAIK, I didn't end up in the jury pool because I knew a prosecutor or cop. Were "I know a guy who knows a guy" the selection criteria, I would have never ended up on the grand jury, as my father was personal friends with a local defense attorney; the question posed to me wouldn't have been if I hate cops, but whether I knew or was associated with anyone sharing the same name as my father.
  - Taniwha 6y ago
    The main difference I assume is that for a normal jury the defendant can challenge jurors, while for a grand jury the defendant often doesn't even know it is sitting on their case.
    - busymom0 6y ago
      I could be wrong but my understanding is that grand jury is sort of like a trial jury (trail as in demo/mock, not a court trial) to show the evidence and case from the prosecutor side only in order to get an indictment. You can perform a grand jury multiple times in order to get the outcome indictment you need to finally charge someone. If you can’t convince a grand jury to get an indictment, then you will have an even harder time when the case goes to actual court with the defence being present with their own side of story. So I guess there’s pros and cons to this. Ultimately the actual court trial is what matters but of course an indictment is mostly enough to destroy someone’s reputation even if they get acquitted later on (I think government has a 95%+ success rate or something).
gumby 6y ago
The system of having a judge/prosecutor with broad investigative powers is unknown in the US, which is probably a good thing given how the rest of the system is organized. The jury that hears the evidence in a trial is referred to as the petit jury (small jury). It is convened for a single case. The grand jury is a standing body (also supposed to be drawn from the populace, and with definite tenure) which hears preliminary evidence and in theory decides whether there is enough of a case that an actual trial would be warranted. It can issue subpoenas (as in this situation). The rest of the US system is weird. At the federal level the people who judge the cases are a whole branch who do pretty much nothing but that. The actual bringing of the cases is the responsibility of the executive. Oh, various departments of the executive have their own "courts" too that rule with no juries. There is no constitutional reason why this whole apparatus could not be part of the judicial branch but I've not seen any interest in that happening. Actually the executive's courts are pretty clearly not constitutional but they have survived enough challenges that they are simply the way they are. At the state level the same system is roughly followed but in most, or perhaps all states, the attorneys general (who oversee all prosecutions) and Supreme Court judges are elected. Sheriffs too, which in some states are important police, and even some chiefs of police. You might think that this direct election would reduce the chance of corruption but of course it seems to run the opposite way. The longstanding American distaste for competence is the strongest force against a trained, standing set of people to do things.
- zerocrates 6y ago
  Not all states have judicial elections. In Virginia, for example, judges are appointed by the legislature. There are also some that appoint rather than elect attorneys general and local prosecutors.
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  > Actually the executive's courts are pretty clearly not constitutional but they have survived enough challenges that they are simply the way they are. They are Constitutional, they just perform Article II executive functions and are established under Article I powers of Congress; despite being called “courts”, they do not exercise any part of the Constitutional judicial power. (Hence, why they are described as “Article I courts” as opposed to the “Article III courts”.)
jellicle 6y ago
The jury trials you are thinking of are petit juries. The grand jury is an extra pre-trial step, which most countries have abandoned at this point

But trial by jury continues to be used in several countries (maybe in more restricted ways but it still a thing) or is there something special about a "Grand Jury"?

homero 6y ago

Yes a grand jury is just the prosecutor and jury. It's secret and the defendant doesn't even know. It's a way to start a case, not sure when a prosecutor needs or doesn't need a grand jury.

NovemberWhiskey 6y ago
It's usually the misdemeanor / felony boundary.
at-fates-hands 6y ago
There are reasons in which it is an appropriate or desirable alternative to a preliminary hearing. The California Grand Jury Association cites multiple surveys that have been taken of California district attorneys, who listed the following factors as influential in the decision to seek a grand jury indictment rather than using the preliminary hearing: • High public interest in the case; • The fact that a preliminary hearing would take more time than a grand jury hearing; • The necessity for calling children or timid witnesses who would be subject to cross‑examination at a preliminary hearing; • The ability to test a witness before a jury; • Where the secrecy of the grand jury may allow defendants to be charged and taken into custody before they can pose potential danger to a witness' safety or flee from the jurisdiction; • Where the identity of undercover agents needs to be protected; • The existence of a weak or doubtful case which the district attorney wishes to test; • The opportunity to involve the community in case screening; and • Whether the case involves malfeasance in office. https://www.pooleshaffery.com/news/2014/december/a-crash-course-in-the-american-grand-jury-system/ https://www.pooleshaffery.com/news/2014/december/a-crash-cou...
- wildfire 6y ago
  Thanks for the list, I still would like to understand why a Grand Jury needs to exist when our countries, presumably, also have the same set of problems but not a Grand Jury. I wonder how other common law systems handle this (not a lawyer, am genuinely asking).

Dah00n 6y ago

To add to the other comment a Grand Jury is also often made up of jurors called in using the prosecutor's private phone contacts. A few ex-cops and former work buddies. People also go to jail because of misuse of power by grand juries. There's a great documentary on Netflix but I can't remember its name right now. Suffice to say there aren't grand juries in any well working and fair justice system. It's abuse and/or theater 100% of the time.

Red_Leaves_Flyy 6y ago
Are you thinking of strong island? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strong_Island_(film) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strong_Island_(film)
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
korethr 6y ago
I will offer a counter-example to this. I was an alternate for my local county's grand jury for a year. I was selected through the same voir dire process used to place me on a petit jury for a criminal trial years later. It was wholly random. AFAIK, I didn't end up in the jury pool because I knew a prosecutor or cop. Were "I know a guy who knows a guy" the selection criteria, I would have never ended up on the grand jury, as my father was personal friends with a local defense attorney; the question posed to me wouldn't have been if I hate cops, but whether I knew or was associated with anyone sharing the same name as my father.
- Taniwha 6y ago
  The main difference I assume is that for a normal jury the defendant can challenge jurors, while for a grand jury the defendant often doesn't even know it is sitting on their case.
  - busymom0 6y ago
    I could be wrong but my understanding is that grand jury is sort of like a trial jury (trail as in demo/mock, not a court trial) to show the evidence and case from the prosecutor side only in order to get an indictment. You can perform a grand jury multiple times in order to get the outcome indictment you need to finally charge someone. If you can’t convince a grand jury to get an indictment, then you will have an even harder time when the case goes to actual court with the defence being present with their own side of story. So I guess there’s pros and cons to this. Ultimately the actual court trial is what matters but of course an indictment is mostly enough to destroy someone’s reputation even if they get acquitted later on (I think government has a 95%+ success rate or something).

gumby 6y ago

The system of having a judge/prosecutor with broad investigative powers is unknown in the US, which is probably a good thing given how the rest of the system is organized. The jury that hears the evidence in a trial is referred to as the petit jury (small jury). It is convened for a single case. The grand jury is a standing body (also supposed to be drawn from the populace, and with definite tenure) which hears preliminary evidence and in theory decides whether there is enough of a case that an actual trial would be warranted. It can issue subpoenas (as in this situation). The rest of the US system is weird. At the federal level the people who judge the cases are a whole branch who do pretty much nothing but that. The actual bringing of the cases is the responsibility of the executive. Oh, various departments of the executive have their own "courts" too that rule with no juries. There is no constitutional reason why this whole apparatus could not be part of the judicial branch but I've not seen any interest in that happening. Actually the executive's courts are pretty clearly not constitutional but they have survived enough challenges that they are simply the way they are. At the state level the same system is roughly followed but in most, or perhaps all states, the attorneys general (who oversee all prosecutions) and Supreme Court judges are elected. Sheriffs too, which in some states are important police, and even some chiefs of police. You might think that this direct election would reduce the chance of corruption but of course it seems to run the opposite way. The longstanding American distaste for competence is the strongest force against a trained, standing set of people to do things.

zerocrates 6y ago
Not all states have judicial elections. In Virginia, for example, judges are appointed by the legislature. There are also some that appoint rather than elect attorneys general and local prosecutors.
dragonwriter 6y ago
> Actually the executive's courts are pretty clearly not constitutional but they have survived enough challenges that they are simply the way they are. They are Constitutional, they just perform Article II executive functions and are established under Article I powers of Congress; despite being called “courts”, they do not exercise any part of the Constitutional judicial power. (Hence, why they are described as “Article I courts” as opposed to the “Article III courts”.)

jellicle 6y ago

The jury trials you are thinking of are petit juries. The grand jury is an extra pre-trial step, which most countries have abandoned at this point