Grand juries are just a puppet of the prosecutor. The rules regarding evidence are much less strict for a grand jury, and the prosecutor has full control over what evidence the grand jury is allowed to see.
The district attorney is typically an elected position, so the job has to consider politics when deciding whether or not to press charges. And some cases are politically inconvenient. The public wants to see a corrupt cop charged… But the police union has privately told the DA that if they bring charges against the cop, the police will stop cooperating as witnesses or collecting any crime scene evidence until the charges are dropped. Making the DA’s job impossible in other cases.
Essentially, if it would be politically inconvenient for a prosecutor to press charges, they can simply refuse to bring any evidence before the grand jury. And then when the grand jury refuses to indict (because they had no evidence) then the DA can hop in front of a news camera and go “oh sorry people, I wanted to press charges on this cop, but the big mean grand jury refused. But remember I tried! I’m tough on crime and am constantly fighting to keep our streets safe. Vote for me!” The grand jury is a very convenient scapegoat. They’re a faceless blob that can’t defend themselves in the news headlines.
Or inversely, if the prosecutor wants to press charges, they could literally just scribble “lmao yeah I did it, signed {defendant}” on a fast food napkin and present it to the grand jury as “evidence”. There also isn’t any defense lawyer at the grand jury proceedings, because nobody has been charged with a crime yet. So there’s nobody to go “hey the DA literally just wrote that confession themselves. That evidence wouldn’t stand up in court.” The old joke among lawyers is that the grand jury would indict a ham sandwich for murder if the DA wanted them to.
Make no mistake. If the DA wanted to prosecute this, the grand jury would have voted to indict.
Grand juries are just a puppet of the prosecutor. The rules regarding evidence are much less strict for a grand jury, and the prosecutor has full control over what evidence the grand jury is allowed to see.
The district attorney is typically an elected position, so the job has to consider politics when deciding whether or not to press charges. And some cases are politically inconvenient. The public wants to see a corrupt cop charged… But the police union has privately told the DA that if they bring charges against the cop, the police will stop cooperating as witnesses or collecting any crime scene evidence until the charges are dropped. Making the DA’s job impossible in other cases.
Essentially, if it would be politically inconvenient for a prosecutor to press charges, they can simply refuse to bring any evidence before the grand jury. And then when the grand jury refuses to indict (because they had no evidence) then the DA can hop in front of a news camera and go “oh sorry people, I wanted to press charges on this cop, but the big mean grand jury refused. But remember I tried! I’m tough on crime and am constantly fighting to keep our streets safe. Vote for me!” The grand jury is a very convenient scapegoat. They’re a faceless blob that can’t defend themselves in the news headlines.
Or inversely, if the prosecutor wants to press charges, they could literally just scribble “lmao yeah I did it, signed {defendant}” on a fast food napkin and present it to the grand jury as “evidence”. There also isn’t any defense lawyer at the grand jury proceedings, because nobody has been charged with a crime yet. So there’s nobody to go “hey the DA literally just wrote that confession themselves. That evidence wouldn’t stand up in court.” The old joke among lawyers is that the grand jury would indict a ham sandwich for murder if the DA wanted them to.
Make no mistake. If the DA wanted to prosecute this, the grand jury would have voted to indict.