<p>Have you ever been on a grand jury? What was it like?</p>
<p>I ask because one of my kids (now out of college and working) has been called for grand jury duty. I’ve never been on a grand jury, and neither have any of my friends or relatives, and I’m wondering what the experience is like.</p>
<p>Alternated between boring and appalling. We met one full day a week for 6 months. A string of prosecutors and officers came in stating their evidence, and we mostly voted to indict. Different states will have different procedures.</p>
<p>Most of the charges seemed to be for stolen credit cards or drug sales. We spend a lot of time and money chasing petty dealers.</p>
<p>They usually saved the truly awful cases for late in the day, and then I just wanted to go home and hug my kid. People do terrible things to each other sometimes.</p>
<p>Thanks for sharing your story, MomofJandL.</p>
<p>In the jurisdiction where my kid lives, it’s done differently. You serve for 5 consecutive weeks, 5 days a week. I’m not sure which arrangement is better for the juror, but I think the arrangement you had is better for employers.</p>
<p>Yes, I just finished our county grand jury service. We met two days a month for 4 months. So it was not a big inconvenience. I am glad I did it. It was quite interesting and very different from petit jury duty.</p>
<p>As MomofJandL said our job was only to determine if there was enough evidence to indict. We had several different prosecutors that each handled different types of cases. Each prosecutor had their own style of presenting witnesses and evidence, but it struck me how the prosecutor would “lead” the direction of the testimony. It was basically re-stating what was in the police reports or other official reports. We only had an actual live witness one time. Other times it was just the law enforcement officials. It was frustrating at times not to have the alleged offender’s side of the story. But that is how the system goes.</p>
<p>It was fascinating (and scary) to hear many of these cases. There are a lot of disturbed people out there, and this was in my own county. Our final case was a murder case which was a slam dunk to indict, since the alleged offender had admitted doing it and had an accomplice who also admitted to it.</p>
<p>We were able to dress casually as we were not in a courtroom. It was more of a meeting room. Most everything was recorded. Our foreman had to swear each witness in and also had to sign all the indictments. All in all, I enjoyed the experience. As I said, very different from petit jury duty.</p>
<p>That actually sounds interesting, kitty56, even though you didn’t get to hear the other side of the stories.</p>
<p>I had thought that grand jury service would be less interesting than being on a trial jury, but you gave me a different impression.</p>
<p>I don’t think my kid will be surprised to find out that there are disturbed people in the jurisdiction in question – it’s a central city. It would be more uncomfortable in a safe-seeming suburb, I think.</p>
<p>I’ve served as a grand juror, and I found it very interesting although I agree with others that it is sad to realize there are so many broken lives.</p>
<p>We heard about 10-15 cases per day. No petty theft, but lots of murders, rapes and major crime like that. The saddest were the child abuse cases. </p>
<p>The jury was not finding guilt or innocence, so the rules are quite different. First, instead of 12 jurors, we had about 50. There is no judge, only a jury manager. No questions are forbidden, but the police may choose not to answer. The state’s witness, usually a police officer, was sworn in then the prosecutor asked him questions. We the jurors could then ask any questions we wanted of both the prosecutor and the witness. Lastly, they take a vote to see if the jurors indict the accused or not.</p>
<p>The prospective defendant never appears, of course. However, in one case the prosecutor actually brought in the prospective defendant’s girlfriend. The police couldn’t get her to talk, so they put her in front of the grand jurors and let us have the floor. That was really interesting - one young juror stood up and really let fly. He said she was ruining her life, etc etc. and really gave it to her. If it were a reality show, it would have gotten great ratings.</p>
<p>I served as the foreman half the time. At the end of each day’s session, one of the prosectors and I would go to the courtroom and the robed judge would swear us in, and accept the indictments on behalf of the state.</p>