Grand Jury facts
While investigating facts about Grand Jury Indictment and Grand Jury Duty, I found out little known, but curios details like:
In 2007, a Texas man saw his neighbor's empty house being burglarized. He told 911, "I'm not gonna let them get away with it." After they left the house he said, "I'm gonna kill him", and then went outside and shot both men in the back, killing them. The grand jury found it was justified.
how grand jury works?
The purpose of the grand jury is not to determine guilt or innocence, but to decide whether there is probable cause to prosecute someone for a felony crime.
What to expect at grand jury duty?
In my opinion, it is useful to put together a list of the most interesting details from trusted sources that I've come across answering who is present at grand jury hearing. Here are 26 of the best facts about Grand Jury Subpoena and Grand Jury Process I managed to collect.
what happens at grand jury?
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A judge dismissed animal-cruelty charges against a man accused of sticking his penis into the mouths of five calves in 2006, claiming a grand jury couldn't infer whether the cows had been "tormented" or "puzzled" by the situation or even irritated that they'd been duped out of a meal.
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In 1734 New York's Governor William Cosby had John Peter Zenger charged with criminal libel, but Zenger was acquitted by a grand jury.
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Ignoramus' is latin for "We are ignorant", and a grand jury used to refuse an indictment by writing 'ignoramus' on the bill ("We are ignorant [of any crime occurring here]")
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Only the US maintains Grand Juries after being abolished by all other Western legal systems over the last century.
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The United States and Liberia are the only two countries to still have grand juries. A grand jury is a group of 16 to 23 citizens who decide whether probable cause exists to support criminal charges.
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Last year a grand jury in Maryland declined to indict three off-duty deputies in the death by asphyxia of a man with Down syndrome. The investigation was conducted by the sheriff's office that employed the deputies
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John Mullowney aka Sean na Sagart, a convicted horse thief, had his death sentence commuted by a grand jury and was appointed as a serial killer of Catholic priests aka Priest Hunter around 1709.
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If you're the target of a US Grand Jury, there's a 99.993% chance of indictment--unless you're a cop; then its 1.23%
Why grand jury secrecy?
You can easily fact check why grand jury indictments by examining the linked well-known sources.
Witnesses appearing before a grand jury have a right to an attorney, but the lawyer must stay out of the room and is, therefore, at a disadvantage. A judge is not present, so there's no one to raise an objection - or to consider it. And all deliberations are conducted in secret.
A Texas grand jury ruled the 1961 death of Henry Marshall to be suicide, even though he had been shot five times with a bolt action rifle. The cause of death was later ordered changed in 1985 by a state judge. - source
In 1987 a 15 year old African American girl claimed being raped by 6 white men. She was found in a trash bag with feces on her. The Grand Jury concluded that she had never been raped. Bill Cosby and Al Sharpton supported her case. - source
If A Grand Jury Indicts For A Felony, What Happens?
Jerry Sandusky's autobiography is titled "Touched: The Jerry Sandusky Story". In 2011, following a two-year grand jury investigation, Sandusky was arrested and charged with 52 counts of sexual abuse of young boys over a 15-year period from 1994 to 2009. - source
When grand jury used?
In 1858, a police officer in New York City shot a suspect who was not resisting at point blank range, but the grand jury failed to indict him.
How grand jury is selected?
April 21st, 2004 marks the day Michael Jackson was indicted by a grand jury after they found there was sufficient evidence to bring charges against him for molestation. The trial ended on June 13, 2005, when the jury returned a unanimous not guilty verdict on all fourteen charges.
Of 69,254 cases in 2009, grand juries indicted all but 20.
U.S. attorneys prosecuted 162,000 federal cases in 2010, the most recent year for which we have data. Grand juries declined to return an indictment in 11 of them.
The opposite of a Grand Jury is a Petit Jury; the jury that decides the verdict in cases.
