Posted on 02/17/2015 2:13:56 PM PST by Citizen Zed
Following two controversial decisions by grand juries in New York and in Missouri, New York's top judge is calling for an overhaul of the system.
Chief Judge Jonathan Lippman called the grand jury system a "relic of another time," and said that the way it has worked so far has led to a perception that prosecutors are unable to objectively present evidence to grand juries.
"Such perceptions, while broad brush, clearly can undermine public trust and confidence in the justice system," Lippman said during his annual State of the Judiciary address, according to Newsday. "To me, it is obvious that we need significant change in grand jury practices and protocols in the world we live today."
Of course, Lippman was talking after two separate grand juries refused to charge white police officers who played a role in the death of two black men — Eric Garner in New York and Michael Brown in Ferguson.
According to the Times Union in Albany, Lippman proposed making two big changes to the system: First judges — not prosecutors — should oversee grand juries weighing police-related deaths and second, he said the testimony heard by the grand jury should be released in cases of "high public interest."
Newsday adds:
"Lippman's proposals would have to be approved by state lawmakers. Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo has said he will push grand jury and criminal justice changes in the 2015 legislative session.
"Currently, judges nominally oversee the grand jury process by giving preliminary instructions to the jurors before hearing cases. Lippman wants a judge 'physically present in the grand jury room' to provide legal rulings, ask questions of witnesses, preclude inadmissible evidence and provide final instructions before a jury deliberates — though the judge wouldn't vote."
Social justice, an equal amount of ethnic groups should be represented in our jail systems not just blacks.
800 years is not enough tradition for this New Yawk doofus in robes!
The Grand Jury was inherited from English common law — in twelfth century England a selection of twelve men in every hundred were tasked as informants to the king to extend his will (the centralization of governance) and accuse criminals and were fined if there weren’t sufficient accusations made. Obviously a system that lent itself to abuse, in 1215 the Magna Carta addressed it by delineating individual protections of life, liberty, and property by order of law. During the reign of Edward III, this group of twelve was supercedes by twenty-four knights chosen by the local sheriff who had the authority for starting prosecution and the group of twelve became the petit jury and since they no longer held their accusatory function became responsible for returning a verdict of guilty or innocent in capital crimes.
In 1635 the first Grand Jury was established in the American colonies, and was used to charge Assistants whom the Monarchy had authorized to make laws, accuse suspects, and judge criminals — thus the American Grand Jury began not as an instrument of the government, but a defense against lawlessness committed by the government.
This spirit was again replicated in England, in part, in 1681 when the pro-Protestant Grand Jury refused to indict the enemies of Catholic King Charles II for reasons of the government’s admittance of their witnesses perjuring themselves and weak, inconclusive documentary evidence. This is the Grand Jury that the post Revolutionary America inherited and whose existence was codified in the Fifth Amendment: an independent institution capable of both initiating prosecution and refusing to validate the government’s prosecution orders — a protector of the people and overseer of the government.
It was not until 1946 that there was concern about a “runaway Grand Jury” because, prior to the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure every Grand Jury was “runaway” — the reason that they restricted the Grand Jury was to willfully subvert the power of the Grand Jury to act independently of the prosecutor or judge and prevent it from being able to investigate on its own suspicions — the only reason to subvert this would be to eliminate the power to root out government corruption.
Agreed. Today, in America politicians do not act for the benefit of all but solely for the benefit of them and their class. In this case at a minimum this idiot wants judges to increase their power and the threat of public disclosure to intimidate the jury.
You probably have a good point.
One must then assume he liked the law of the Crown before the Magna Carta
The Grand Jury system can’t be that bad. It found Bernie Goetz not guilty of all charges except the gun possession charge. And that shouldn’t even count. The 2nd Amendment should trump all NYC gun laws.
Well, OF COURSE.
I think that's why the federal rules have the "runaway grand jury" clause and also give no heed to the powers of Presentment.
Notes of Advisory Committee on Rules—1944And thus by fiat their power is stripped from the Grand Jury, much like jury nullification it's one of those things that's technically/legally true but essentially nonexistent due to the [lack of] education on the matter.
4. Presentment is not included as an additional type of formal accusation, since presentments as a method of instituting prosecutions are obsolete, at least as concerns the Federal courts.
Hell no! ....Activist judges already make a mockery of petit jury trials and the sentencing of people convicted.
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