Replies

I thought grand juries were called when prosecutors don't have enough confidence in their case to go straight to court. Thus, they get a "conviction" by a "jury" based soley on the prosecution's evidence.

This is not a good sign given the defense that Jackson's millions will be able to garner. We will probably see another "OJ" phenomenon (known as "jury nullification") wherein no amount of evidence will result in a conviction of a "favorite son" (as it were). IMO, the guy is unbalanced and probably a child molester who, if convicted, should be sent to prison for 75+ years for irreparably damaging the lives of young boys. We shall see.

I served on a grand jury in OR last year and learned a lot about how the court system works, at least in that state.

All cases that come before a judge in a trial go to the grand jury first. Cops and others involved present the "bare" facts (DAs decide who to bring in) and if the grand jury considers that a crime has been committed and the suspect will be convicted IF all the evidence they've seen is shown to be true, then the suspect is arraigned (I think that's the next stage - we didn't see the next stage).

At any rate, if the grand jury sends up an indictment, a trial or plea bargain happens. Or the suspect just enters a guilty plea. So every crime that winds up in a trial has a grand jury hearing first. We went through a LOT of cases in a few months.