Federal Prosecutors Struggle With Grand Juries

[Princess Turandot]

2. Props to the citizens of the District of Columbia..

Doing your civic duty in the courts, despite not having any federal voting representation in Congress. (I realize that there have been some failed indictments in Virginia as well.)

It's hard to imagine listening to witnesses with a straight face for the crime of felony sandwich flinging.

I've served on the grand jury in NYS Supreme Court. While the procedures in federal court might well be different, in NYS, 11 votes are needed to indict, out of maximum of 21 jurors. At least 15 jurors had to be there to hear the case. So rather than a unanimous vote, they needed as little as 51%, if everyone was there. One curious thing was that the prosecutors just called witnesses, then read us the criminal code that applied. IIRC they made no arguments to show us how the evidence supported the indictment.