They determine if there is enough evidence to show that there should be an indictment for an arrest in order for there to BE a trial. The prosecutor usually makes that decision on their own in most cases. And if the grand jury votes to indict THEN the person is arrested and charged and THAT triggers a trial.
Generally, I think a grand jury indictment rather than a prosecutor's sole whim to arrest or not is more fair. Prosecutors can and occasionally do decide to make an arrest or not to make an arrest for personal or political reasons. In general they seem to want to only arrest if there is an abundance of evidence (a "slam dunk"
that a trial jury will find the person guilty since generally prosecutors don't like to lose cases. More equivalent cases seem to go to trial by grand jury indictment (hence the term "a grand jury will indict a ham sandwich" than by the sole decision of a prosecutor that generally wants a "slam dunk" and isn't keen on an arrest without an abundance of evidence that greatly improve the odds of "winning" (a guilty verdict - successful prosecution) at trial.
No one should ever be arrested, charged and tried because of personal, political or public anger reasons. Evidence is the only thing that should ever decide whether or not a person should be arrested, charged and tried. That's why we have grand juries - to make sure that cases where that may be called into question are decided by a grand jury whether or not an arrest is warranted based only on the evidence and not by personal whim, political aspirations or "mob rule".
I've seen so many people saying that a grand jury is "trying" Wilson. Grand juries are not trial juries. All they do - all they're allowed to do - is ascertain whether or not there is sufficient evidence to warrant a person be arrested, charged and tried. It takes the place of a prosecutor making that decision on their own where they might decide to arrest or not arrest a person because of personal or political reasons. This is why a grand jury only sees prosecutorial evidence and why attorneys aren't permitted to be present. By allowing any defensive evidence or attorneys making objections and doing the questioning of witnesses it becomes a trial and defeats the purpose of the grand jury. Since all they do is examine prosecutorial evidence to determine if there is sufficient prosecutorial evidence to arrest, charge and try someone than they shouldn't have any other information, and they do witnesses questioning themselves.
We don't know what information the grand jury has been given in this case or what witnesses they have questioned or what those witnesses testified to. From a few leaks in the press which may or may not be correct it has been said that though he isn't required to Wilson voluntarily appeared before the grand jury and testified and presumably was also questioned for something like four hours. It has also been said that many witnesses also testified and were presumably questioned some of which said that Brown had his hands up and wasn't moving forward while some said otherwise. I would hope that once the grand jury makes its decision that we'll find out what evidence they examined and what witnesses testified to given the public interest in the incident.
As a side note, this case is the perfect example of why police car video cameras as well as officer body cameras are imperative. Every police department should be equipped with these useful tools no matter how small some departments may be and every police car and officer should have them and be required to use them. If any departments don't have the funds than individual states or the federal government should furnish it.
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