Let a Thousand "Rogue" Grand Juries Bloom!

Submitted by Bill St. Clair on Fri, 04 Nov 2011 13:36:23 GMT  <== Politics ==> 

William N. Grigg - the Harris County Texas grand jury performs its duty, much to the chagrin of the district attorney. Bravo!

“Today, the grand jury is the total captive of the prosecutor, who, if he is candid, will concede that he can indict anybody, at any time, for almost anything, before any grand jury,” wrote federal District Judge William J. Campbell in a 1973 law journal article calling for formal abolition of the institution on the grounds of redundancy. This isn't to say that the grand jury is considered useless by the prosecutorial caste: It helps maintain the pretense that prosecutors are servants of the public will.

What is happening in Harris County is not an example of a grand jury going "rogue," but rather one behaving exactly as it should. It is interposing itself on behalf of the public by investigating a federally subsidized revenue-collection racket, and the abusive prosecutor who presides over it. Hopefully its example will prove to be contagious.

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