A grand jury is a type of jury that determines whether a criminal indictment will be issued. Currently, only the United States retains grand juries, although some other common law jurisdictions formerly employed them, and most other jurisdictions employ some other type of preliminary hearing. In Ireland, they also functioned as local government authorities.
A grand jury is so named because it has a greater number of jurors than a trial jury (also known as a petit jury, from the French for small).
Other articles related to "grand jury, grand":
... In the early decades of the United States grand juries played a major role in public matters ... the traditional practice of requiring all decisions be made by at least twelve of the grand jurors, (e.g ... for a twenty-three-person grand jury, twelve people would constitute a bare majority) ...
... Known grand jury witnesses Claire Buchan – Deputy Press Secretary Matthew Cooper
... The grand jury hearing was scheduled for June 5 ... It is interesting to note that during the period between the arraignments and the grand jury proceedings, it was found that George Long was actually George ... On June 11, Long and Parker were indicted by the grand jury ...
... The court determined the grand jury was not legally assembled ... Kennedy shares the opinion of the court "Legally speaking, there was no grand jury convened in this case ... As a result, the indictment issued by the grand jury was void and the district court did not have jurisdiction to proceed with the trial in this case," ...
Famous quotes containing the words jury and/or grand:
“So the Snark found the verdict, although as it owned,
It was spent with the toils of the day:
When it said the word ‘GUILTY!’ the Jury all groaned,
And some of them fainted away.”
—Lewis Carroll [Charles Lutwidge Dodgson] (1832–1898)
“The most refined skills of color printing, the intricate techniques of wide-angle photography, provide us pictures of trivia bigger and more real than life. We forget that we see trivia and notice only that the reproduction is so good. Man fulfils his dream and by photographic magic produces a precise image of the Grand Canyon. The result is not that he adores nature or beauty the more. Instead he adores his camera—and himself.”
—Daniel J. Boorstin (b. 1914)