Can we just shoot rioters already?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Khendraja'aro

What exactly is that secrecy for? I don't see anything useful coming out of that. As of yet, I have not seen one single useful argument supporting all this secrecy. Merely a "What does it matter?" by Loki which is a non-argument. And wrong to boot.

---

The US legal system is adversarial. How much information the defense has about not just the facts the prosecutor has but how they are interpreted and presented matters. Knowledge of who is testifying and the exact things they are testifying to, down to their precise wording matters when it could be months before the criminal trial starts.

Quote:

---

They're doing the opposite: They make people go not to jail. What use are all those court proceedings if you can simply bypass that through a biased prosecutor?

---

It's not a court proceeding.

Quote:

---

Thanks. Though I thought the principle of juries was that they are of your peers, and this seems biased towards people who want to do extra work to bring law and order. Then again, also open for people who want to check on the prosecutors/local government/etc., so I guess that balances out. Though since wikipedia mentioned grand juries are usually supervised by the prosecutor's office, if they also do the screening and selection that could of course bring a bias.


And I suppose all of this is also different from state to state and in federal courts? To keep things simple for us? :p

---

Just who constitutes ones "peers" has always been a bit of a vague area :) In the case of California's civil grand juries, ones "peers" are either retired or doing work which leaves them a lot of free time on their hands, and rather civic-minded since it's an extensive time commitment with only token renumeration. Our civil grand juries also do function (and are paid for) as part of each county's Superior Court so they aren't under the DA's office though the DA can and will sometimes ask them to consider a criminal matter and I believe in some counties the DA can empanel its own grand jury for criminal matters aside from the mandate civil grand jury which the state requires for each county. And AFAIK, California is the only state that uses (requires, in fact) these "civil grand juries."

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Flixy

...

And I suppose all of this is also different from state to state and in federal courts? To keep things simple for us? :p

---

Right. For example, cameras aren't allowed in federal courts. The differences between states is compounding general confusion and anger -- Missouri's DA promised to release all grand jury testimony, but some was kept back on request by the feds (for any pending federal case) but New York has a stricter state law about grand jury secrecy, so virtually none of the facts were released.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by LittleFuzzy

...

Just who constitutes ones "peers" has always been a bit of a vague area :) In the case of California's civil grand juries, ones "peers" are either retired or doing work which leaves them a lot of free time on their hands, and rather civic-minded since it's an extensive time commitment with only token renumeration. Our civil grand juries also do function (and are paid for) as part of each county's Superior Court so they aren't under the DA's office though the DA can and will sometimes ask them to consider a criminal matter and I believe in some counties the DA can empanel its own grand jury for criminal matters aside from the mandate civil grand jury which the state requires for each county. And AFAIK, California is the only state that uses (requires, in fact) these "civil grand juries."

---

And aren't all jurors pulled from voter registration lists, which makes voter registration laws so important?

It's not the only way to end up with a jury summons and that's probably one of the least important factors in voter registration.