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Comment by TheBeardKing | Hacker News Reader

Have you read into how big a sham our grand juries are? I'm currently serving on a federal grand jury, and several times a month they pay travel and per diem for dozens of people to listen to a one-sided argument by a US Assistant District Attorney to bring a case to trial. No defense is offered, and they can withhold as much evidence as they like. It's a total waste of time, and I'm sure costs the tax payers millions of dollars a year. After witnessing how ridiculous the whole process, I read that in most countries the prosecutor simply offers their evidence to a judge, who determines probable cause.

But the most outrageous stories you've heard recently about grand juries are that even though they'll "indict a ham sandwich," police officers accused of crimes rarely get indicted because it's in the prosecutor's best interest not to aggravate the department from whom they receive most of their work.

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An indictment is not a successful prosecution.

And it does cost money...money, in my opinion is well spent, because in brings in skeptical people such as yourself with the power to check an overzealous prosecutor with simply arresting people on flimsy charges.

There's no defense because no one has been charged; and if you decided that the prosecutor is full of shit, then it means an innocent person is not disrupted or tainted with legal action. That they withold evidence is to protect their sources....which is a trade-off for them, because to withhold is to weaken their case.

I see nothing ridiculous about it at all, really. You're serving a hugely important role as a check on the ability for the executive to go after people. It's a rare occasion where the government is directly answerable to YOU. Hold them to a high standard. And if you think they're trying to pull one over on you, the people, send them packing.

I recently served on a New York grand jury and in my experience the biggest problem was that in 38/40 cases we only heard one side of the story. There were two cases where the defendants testified. Like the other cases, the story of the other witnesses (often cops, sometimes civilians, sometimes some of each) was quite straightforward... until the defendant testified.

It may have been in the defendants' best interest to "muddy the waters" as much as possible, but in both cases we obtained impartial evidence (video, 3rd party records) that corroborated parts of the defendants' stories and conflicted with those of the police officers. (There were other parts of the story where the reverse was true too). In both cases once we heart the defendant's side we needed additional evidence, beyond what the DA had initially provided, for us to be able to decide on whether or not to indict.

Wo some cases it is hard to imagine there being another side (somebody is accused of selling drugs to an under cover cop or there's video of somebody committing the crime), but it makes me wonder if how many of the others were less straightforward than they seemed.

I'd be interested to know under what circumstances a defense is called in during an indictment hearing. Maybe it depends on the evidence being presented, and whether or not it could be refuted easily (before going to trial?) I dunno. Interesting, thanks for sharing.

>An indictment is not a successful prosecution.

It can still ruin a life. The social consequences of being indited can be the worst part of some crimes. Especially for charges that people keep saying 'well better safe than sorry'.

Absolutely. That's why, as some people asked elsewhere, why there's no defense. Because they haven't been disturbed yet (in most cases). No reason to drag them in and suffer the social stigma because of some overzealous prosecutor's witch hunt.

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