Grand Jury

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• published: 18 Jan 2009
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The birth of the grand jury is believed to be in England. In the 13th and 14th century the function of the grand jury was to determine whether, from the prosecution's evidence, there were grounds for trial. Grand juries are today virtually unknown outside the United States. A grand jury is meant to be part of the system of checks and balances, preventing a case from going to trial on a prosecutor's bare word. A prosecutor must convince the grand jury, as an impartial panel of ordinary citizens that there exists reasonable suspicion, probable cause, or a prima facie case that a crime has been committed. The grand jury was provided for in the Fifth Amendment to the constitution of the United States to protect the citizen from unjust prosecution. However, since the grand jury is an independent body answerable only to the court and operates in secrecy to protect the innocent, they can also be misused by unscrupulous people to free the guilty and indict the innocent. Jon Roland (Founder and President, Constitution Society, http://www.constitution.org ) has argued that most grand juries as they are set up and used today are unconstitutional, and that there should be a return to grand jury practices closer to those that prevailed during the founding era. This would mean grand juries of 23 unpaid citizens each serving no more than 3,000 people, open to having anyone bring any matter before them, with no preferential treatment of public prosecutors, and deciding every question by a vote of at least 12. Cato Institute (a libertarian think tank headquartered in Washington, D.C.) writers argued that grand juries as conducted today are unjust as the defendant is not represented by counsel and/or does not have the right to call witnesses. Intended to serve as a check on prosecutors, the opportunity it presents them to compel testimony can in fact prove useful in building up the case they will present at the final trial. Judge Sol Wachtler, (Chief Judge of the New York Court of Appeals from 1985 to 1993) the former Chief Judge of New York State, was quoted as saying that a prosecutor could persuade a grand jury to "indict a ham sandwich." The Constitutionality of contemporary grand jury practices has been brought before the Supreme Court six times in history; however, the court has yet to allow a case to be heard. According to Mike Martin, former Texas State Representative in an interview with the Austin American Statesman in 1982, "A grand jury is nothing more than a perjury trap. They drag you in by court order, won't let you have an attorney present, tell you the Fifth [Amendment] doesn't apply because you are not accused of anything, then slap a felony charge on you at the end because you deny an accusation. It goes against everything our forefathers intended when they set up America's judicial system".