johnharlin
Junior Member
What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? California
The Grand Jury seems to have different rules than a regular petite jury.
I have been reading some old history books and news clips of the 1800s for California and they said, an attorney remarked to the judge, that it was common practice to have messages sent back and forth from the jury room to the defendants in a case.
I also read that defendants can screen Grand Jury members for bias and have them retired from the case so long as there were at least 12 members still available.
I don't really understand this Grand Jury procedure at all. Why should defendants in a case be allowed to send messages to jury members. Was it to find out how the jury was voting and who was voting for or against indictment. If so, wouldn't that leave jury members open as targets to be bribed. Messages are certainly not allowed to be passed back and forth in regular juries except to the judge.
There was even something in the late 1800s called a jury broker. They were people who would be hired to approach the most likely jury member to switch their votes by offering them cash or some other kind of reward. The whole idea as explained was that if you had 14 Grand Jury members and 12 were voting to indict and two not to, the defendants would find this out and then target the most likely person to accept a reward to change his vote so that the indictment would get ignored since a majority of 12, needed to indict, would not be reached.
The Grand Jury seems to have been run in a very different and more lose way than the strict way of a regular jury. But maybe reforms have been made and it is now run on a tighter ship.
The Grand Jury seems to have different rules than a regular petite jury.
I have been reading some old history books and news clips of the 1800s for California and they said, an attorney remarked to the judge, that it was common practice to have messages sent back and forth from the jury room to the defendants in a case.
I also read that defendants can screen Grand Jury members for bias and have them retired from the case so long as there were at least 12 members still available.
I don't really understand this Grand Jury procedure at all. Why should defendants in a case be allowed to send messages to jury members. Was it to find out how the jury was voting and who was voting for or against indictment. If so, wouldn't that leave jury members open as targets to be bribed. Messages are certainly not allowed to be passed back and forth in regular juries except to the judge.
There was even something in the late 1800s called a jury broker. They were people who would be hired to approach the most likely jury member to switch their votes by offering them cash or some other kind of reward. The whole idea as explained was that if you had 14 Grand Jury members and 12 were voting to indict and two not to, the defendants would find this out and then target the most likely person to accept a reward to change his vote so that the indictment would get ignored since a majority of 12, needed to indict, would not be reached.
The Grand Jury seems to have been run in a very different and more lose way than the strict way of a regular jury. But maybe reforms have been made and it is now run on a tighter ship.
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