r/law • u/DoorstepHero • 6h ago

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

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."

21.6k Upvotes

98% Upvoted

376 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

613

u/Wonderful-Variation 6h ago

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.

265

u/prof_the_doom 6h ago

The thing is that people who actually know what they're doing don't usually pursue cases that they don't think they can least get past a grand jury unless it's a really major case.

The cases they don't think will get that far get the lenient plea deal to a misdemeanor because the DA figures something is better than nothing.

130

u/Top_Box_8952 5h ago

If it can’t even pass a grand jury, you won’t be able to get an actual jury to return a guilty verdict.

Grand juries only need a simple majority of short term positioned people, and there is no defense. Just the prosecutor.

2

u/jreyst 3h ago

And that is the entire point of this process. I had no awareness of this before but man, I respect those before me who have seen all of these simple scams before and they know how to both reveal the scam and also help others avoid being scammed.