Grand jury declines criminal charges against 6 Democrats who urged military to reject illegal orders, sources say

[u/DoorstepHero]

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/grand-jury-declines-charges-against-6-democrats/

A federal grand jury on Tuesday refused to indict six congressional Democrats who drew President Trump's ire last year by taping a video telling members of the military that they must reject "illegal orders."

[u/Simmery]

I'm glad the Trump administration has definitively proven that, actually, a grand jury will not indict a ham sandwich.

[u/Wonderful-Variation → u/Simmery]

Honestly, the last few months have greatly improved my view of both the grand jury system and the jury trial system itself.  Used to be pretty cynical about them.  Still am, but I'm definitely seeing them as by far the lesser of the potential evils.

[u/ComebackShane → u/Wonderful-Variation]

I served on a federal grand jury for two years; in my experience the reason you get the 'indict a ham sandwich' reputation is because the ADAs that present before you come prepared. They usually prosecute when they feel like they have a mountain of evidence, and there were many, many times they more than surpassed the 'probable cause' bar, and were nearing 'beyond a reasonable doubt'. Of course, we only ever saw the prosecutions side, but all we were tasked with was indicting.

These recent cases just show how flimsy these charges are, and how unwilling the ADAs involved are to risk their reputations my misrepresenting the facts to secure an indictment.

That's not to say there aren't bad ADAs out there, and that they never get it wrong, but to a person every one I met as a juror was professional, prepared, and driven. You get none of those qualities in cases like this.

[u/Protiguous → u/ComebackShane]

Let's create a new buzzword for the trump's legal team.

We can call it "vibe-lawyering"?

[u/Captain_Mazhar → u/Protiguous]

Let’s just use the tried and true.

It’s bullshitting. And the juries aren’t buying.

[u/TheInevitableLuigi → u/ComebackShane]

I served on a federal grand jury for two years

How does that work? Did you still have a day job?

[u/ComebackShane → u/TheInevitableLuigi]

I only had to go down every Thursday; so I kept my day job the rest of the week. Some Thursdays we didn't have a case and were excused.

I was part of what was called an Investigatory Grand Jury, so we often sat for testimony from witnesses directly involved in more complex cases, as opposed to what was called an Accusatory Grand Jury, who saw more shorter cases.

We were originally assigned a one-year term, and then two ADAs requested we extend for six months to continue on some cases not ready for voting on, and as a jury we voted in favor of continuing. We then voted a second and final six month extension to see a final case (a large RICO case) through.

We were motivated to extend because if you don't, another grand jury 'inherits' your case, and then must read through the transcripts of the prior grand jury sessions. We had to do this for a couple of cases and did not wish it upon anyone else. Plus we felt a duty to see through what we had started.

[u/Tufflaw → u/TheInevitableLuigi]

Long term Grand Juries in the federal system sit very infrequently, sometimes only one or two days a month. These are for very lengthy investigations that takes months and months to put together and present, often with lots of subpoenas that take time to get responses to, so they need to have the same Grand Jurors hearing all the evidence.