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Originally Posted by palani
The only remedy I could see for rampant DA's is oversight from a common law grand jury composed of 25 members of the community.
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When I served on the Grand Jury for a 3 month term .. we (as the jury) knocked the DA off his throne a number of times. The problem is with the presentment to the GJ it is a one sided presentment from the prosecution only. It is the burden of the GJ to ask questions and then mediate with the other members to return a majority vote. The presentments are designed to make it look to the GJ that it is a clear cut case of "guilty as charged".. they do not offer any information that would lead you to believe otherwise.
One case we had the Sheriff was serving a warrent on a man at an address that he was "supposedly living at". When they knocked on the door and discovered that the man that the warrent was for was not living there, nor had he ever been.. they still decided to arrest and charge the homeowner with possession w/intent to distribute MJ because he had 1 1/4 oz bag and a bong on his coffee table in plain view. It was up to me (as foreman) to ask.. "Did he have scales?" [Uh, NO], "Did he have a prior record?" [Uh, NO], "Was the MJ in pre-packaged weighed amounts intended for sale?", [Uh-NO], "Were there any other types of narcotics found?", [Uh-NO], "Did the man present any resistance to the arrest", [Uh-NO]..
Once the Judge, DA and Cops left for us to deliberate.. I gave a short speech to the other members, we voted and let the man go.. free and clear. Needless to say the DA and cops were pissed that they couldn't charge this man in a felony as they were hoping. He was just an old hippie who didn't bother anyone and enjoyed partaking in a little toke now and then in the privacy of his own home.. that was his right.
Many GJ's will just go with the flow... when I was foreman I was a real thorn. I even intitiated several investigations at the county jails, schools and administrative budgets. We (as the Jury) wrote official recommendations based on our investigations that were published in the local paper.
Needless to say they were glad when our term was up. .. and the next group of sheeple came in.
..J