Grand Jury

The grand jury is composed of 12 to 23 people jury (as opposed to "petit jury ", which always consists of only 12 people, and occurs only in subsequent legal proceedings), which is convened by the prosecutor. It decides whether a crime has been committed and to determine whether the evidence is sufficient and charges to be levied against certain suspects. Grand juries, there are today only in the United States and even there only at the federal level and in less than half of all states. In the UK they were in 1933, abolished in New Zealand in 1961 and in Canada in the 1970s.

General

Grand juries serve as part of the checks and balances to the fact that criminal proceedings do not just come by the prosecution resulting from an untested accusation. As an impartial group of laymen to decide whether sufficient evidence exists that a crime has been committed. Grand juries have the right independently to summon witnesses for this purpose. In contrast to ordinary proceedings Grand juries meet in secret. Neither the alleged perpetrator nor his legal representative shall be present during the testimony of other witnesses.

Because there are no legal restrictions on the frequency of the appointment of a person to the grand jury, and as a federal prosecutor can, and convened the same case multiple times in a grand jury, not if he insists on an indictment and a convened Grand Jury him this granted, some fierce criticism of this legal institution was loud. Also why the grand jury in many U.S. states has been replaced by a process in which the prosecutor initially an information or accusation submit to the competent judge must, which keeps then a preliminary hearing involving the suspects and their lawyers. Only then is the decision on the indictment.