What's a grand Jury?

Following all the recent, racially-tainted police incidents, a vast majority of people doesn't even know what a grand jury is, so today, I'll attempt to fill this gap and share my feelings about it. A grand jury is used to investigate potential criminal conduct, determine if criminal charges are appropriate and performs both accusatory and investigatory functions.

Technically, it's meant to screen out incompetent or malicious prosecutions. Interestingly, the United States is the only country that still uses grand juries and only half of the states actually use them. As it can be composed to up to 23 citizens, it gets its “grand jury” name from the fact that it's larger than the 12 people usually found in a traditional jury.

One of the biggest problem with grand juries is that jurors are not a representative sampling of the community and are not necessarily qualified to understand what's expected of them. Further, unlike potential jurors in regular trials, grand jurors are not screened for bias or other improper factors. Finally, grand jury proceedings are held secret; no judge is present; only a prosecutor leads the proceedings and the defendant has no right to present his case.

All of the above doesn't sound quite right to me and might suggest an urgent review of the practice leading perhaps to its abolition. At least, that's my two-cent...