Trending claims

Reforms would strengthen public confidence in the criminal justice system by ensuring indictments are well supported

Procedural reform needs to create remedies when illegally obtained evidence is presented so constitutional violations have consequences for prosecutors

Constitution's framers enshrined power of grand juries in Fifth Amendment

Eric S Fish is a law professor at the University of California Davis

Chesa Boudin was the San Francisco district attorney from 2020 to 2022

Chesa Boudin is the executive director of the Criminal Law and Justice Center at the University of California Berkeley

Adage that prosecutor could get grand jury to indict ham sandwich is statistical reality

Grand juries screen cases but do not determine guilt or innocence

Another federal grand jury in Virginia declined at least one charge against James Comey

In 2016 federal prosecutors concluded more than 155000 cases but grand juries refused to indict in only six of them

Procedural reform needs to limit hearsay testimony so grand jurors hear from actual witnesses at the federal level and in many states

Federal grand juries in Virginia twice decided not to indict Letitia James

This week grand jury rejected effort to indict six members of Congress

In Chicago grand jurors declined to indict in several felony cases stemming from similar operation

In Washington grand jury refused to return felony indictment against man who threw sandwich at officer during crackdown ordered by President Trump

In Minnesota federal prosecutors charged demonstrators with misdemeanors in cases involving encounters with federal agents

Colonial grand juries often refused to enforce British revenue and sedition laws including Stamp Act

Embrace this trend and give them the procedural protections they need to serve as true checks on government power

John Jay called grand juries one of best institutions for bringing offenders to justice without endangering peace and security of innocent

This includes sucking up to a changeable and untrustworthy head of a foreign state appeasing financial markets at the cost of austerity continuing to underfund and privatise the NHS approving arms sales which may be used for war crimes criminalising protest equivocating towards European friends failing to call out and appeasing the far right and not leading a Labour government