Its way past time to get rid of grand juries in the US legal system. They are ad-hoc bodies made up of persons whose identity is kept secret, that convene in secret for the most part and whose proceedings are often also not made public either. Even in those states that do release some information about the evidence the grand juries considered and about their proceedings, the grand juries are not obliged to reveal themselves or how they arrived at the decisions they did. The given purpose of the grand jury was supposed to be one of moderation and a governor on the dangers of excessive prosecution. But as has become increasingly apparent, they also serve to obscure and divert and delay and deny prosecution when the prosecutor is not inclined to prosecute crimes for whatever reason - corruption, incompetence, racial or religious or other bias, etc Turns out grand juries are not only unamerican - we inherited them from the british - but they are also unbritish, uncanadian and unaustralian since they were rejected in all those other english speaking countries which have a similar legal tradition generations ago for reasons that they dont fit with a free, democratic society that aspires to the rule of law.
Posted on: Tue, 16 Dec 2014 06:32:42 +0000