So, I have served on a grand jury. During this time of service we heard many cases, one for murder, one for rape, a whole bunch for robbery and assault, and one property feud that had been going on for years and years and involved a bunch of cows. We passed that last one to the next grand jury, as several grand juries before us had done. The prosecutor explained to us again and again that we weren't there to determine guilt or innocence, only to decide whether enough evidence existed that a crime had been committed *by the accused* to take it forward to trial. On the murder, a guy was shot in the head in the middle of the street and while a drug associate was implicated, there just wasn't anything concrete to tie the two together. (The gun was never found, the ballistics were unclear, there were no witnesses other than a CI who himself had an extensive record.) So it was clear that a crime had been committed--we got to look at some horrible photographs of a guy lying in the street dead of a gunshot wound to the head--but there wasn't enough evidence to tie it to the individual who had been arrested, so no true bill. The rape case was an instance of 'date rape' between two college students, both of whom showed up to testify, the accused all spit-shined and earnest, saying he was sure she wanted to have sex because she went out with him, the alleged victim traumatized, having dropped out of school and being under treatment for PTSD by a psychiatrist and was on anti-anxiety meds for her testimony, who said that they went out, had too much to drink and she woke up back in his room with him on top of her raping her. The DA *clearly* wanted a true bill on that one, but after he left us to our deliberations there was a faction of "she asked for it" panel members who managed to get a majority vote over those of us who thought just because you go out with some guy and drink too much you aren't automatically agreeing to sex. So that one was a 'no true bill,' too. It was infuriating. Anyway, what happened was that the DA would lay out the whole situation, with evidence both incriminating and exculpatory and then he would leave the room while we reviewed it and made decisions. We were allowed to ask questions of the witnesses (mostly LEO) and could ask for more info. Defense attorneys weren't allowed in, but defendants were (as in the rape case) as well as other witnesses. Most of the time we DID return a true bill, just because there was clearly a lot of evidence showing that a crime had been committed AND tying it to an accused individual. We didn't always feel the person was necessarily guilty, just that we couldn't ignore the facts presented to us. And again, the DA presented both incriminating and exculpatory evidence, but didn't really 'argue' it either way, though you could often tell what HE thought about a given case. Nevertheless, he didn't always get his way, notably in both the murder and the rape case I cited above. A GJ really is a pretty independent entity, for better or worse.
