Talk:Grand jury

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1 Systems with both grand jury and preliminary hearings
2 How is a grand jury different from a regular jury?
- 2.1 Jurisdiction specific
3 =
4 Procedure and timeline
5 reversion
6 Support of Section needed
7 Grand Jury: origin, history, purpose, etc.

[edit] Systems with both grand jury and preliminary hearings

California is a jurisdiction that has both preliminary hearings and grand juries. The prosecution may use either method, at its option. Typically the preliminary hearing method is used when a suspect is arrested by the police (say, with a person caught in the act), while the grand jury method is used after a lengthy investigation concludes a particular suspect is guilty and should be charged (say, with white-collar criminals, or those without an immediate flight risk).

As an example using famous people, consider O.J. Simpson and Michael Jackson. OJ was accused of murder, but he ran. After the infamous chase, he was arrested. The following Monday he was brought to an arraignment, and soon after to a preliminary hearing.

In contrast, Michael Jackson was recently accused of child molestation. I suppose because of the long investigation, his popularity, his recognizability, and lack of flight risk, the Santa Barbara DA decided to indict him, which is unusual but can happen in California.

-- Myria 05:01, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

[edit] How is a grand jury different from a regular jury?

I came to this page hoping to find the answer to one question--is a grand jury made up of the same (random) people as a regular jury, or is a seat on a grand jury an elected or appointed position, or what? Thanks for all your help! [unsigned] I also came looking for this information. Any additions in this area would be helpful. (Melewen 23:49, 26 February 2008 (UTC))

[edit] Jurisdiction specific

The time I was called for jury duty (In TN), it appeared to me during oriention that all the members of the grand jury were chosen out of those trying to get out of regular jury duty, (in that county an on-call basis for six weeks.) By contrast, the Grand Jury was only expected to take the rest of the day. [Small county] Joncnunn 20:32, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] =

- Also, how many people make up a grand jury? And typically, how long do they sit for? Just for one case? or for a specified period of time unless needed for longer?

It depends on the jurisdiction, but I believe many do it the same way as New York. In NY, the Grand Jury is made up of 23 citizens picked randomly from the jury pool. Generally, they sit for 4 weeks and hear as many cases as are available in that time period. There are also "special" Grand Juries that are convened for one specific investigation which sit until the investigation is completed. There are also investigative grand juries formed which sit for a year or so, but meet only once a week. Tufflaw July 7, 2005 13:28 (UTC)

In Maryland, Grand Juries are similarly made up of 23 citizens of whichever County (or city) the grand jury will be sitting in. However, grand juries in Maryland serve 4 month terms (chosen every January, May and September). Because of this long tenure, they are not picked completely at random. Instead, petit jurors are asked to fill out a form if they are willing to participate on a grand jury. Grand jurors are chosen only from those who have agreed to commit themselves to the 4-month term. For that reason, many grand jurors are retirees or citizens otherwise able to commit themselves to a 4-month term. In Baltimore City, grand juries have a second duty aside from indicting people. Each term, a judge of the Circuit Court issues a "charge" to the grand jury to study, research and investigate a particular issue of public policy and to report any problems or recommendations for improvement. In the past, grand juries have explored a variety of issues including healthcare access for incarcerated offenders, drug addiction, child support enforcemen options and alternatives to incarceration for non-violent offenders.

I think especially given the high interest of grand juries due to the "CIA leak case," it would be valuable to include in this article who the members of a grand jury are, how they are selected, and what responsibilities and expectations are on them (for example, petit juries can be sequestered, etc.). DJProFusion 16:38, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Procedure and timeline

Is there a general sequence of events with a grand jury? I'm trying to follow the Valerie Plame leak investigation and was wondering if there are milestones to watch for? How does a grand jury inestigation start? When does it end?

[edit] reversion

Recently User:71.64.134.131 completely rewrote this page. I have reverted it back to its old version, for the following reasons:

suspected copyvio: the entire article was rewritten in one single edit, as though copied-and-pasted. Furthermore, the original second sentence (before somebody fixed it) began "In the United States we have two juries..." which suggests the text was written as some sort of essay or lecture, not an encyclopedia article.
the new version was not wikified or formatted properly (until somebody fixed the latter), and was written by an editor with no other contribs before or since. The former two were fixable and the last doesn't disqualify anybody from editing, of course; but they are reasons to be skeptical about how well the author understands the wikipedia
in particular, he/she made no attempt to work collaboratively with the article as already in place.
likewise, the new revision was often unencyclopedic in tone, and occasionally crossed the line to start to give the author's personal view of grand juries.
while considerably longer than the previous (and now present) version, the new version didn't contain much more information. It was thus harder to read.

If I am wrong in my copyvio suspicions, then all the other objections above are actionable and the new version could in theory be fixed (rather than discarded). However, I believe that would take too much work to really be worthwhile; the old version was working fine and can do so again. Doops | talk 21:01, 17 October 2005 (UTC)