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DLnyc

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29. Technically, a grand jury can't "clear" anybody of anything.

Tue Dec 23, 2014, 11:26 PM

Dec 2014

A district attorney asks (or does not ask) a grand jury to bring an indictment. If the grand jury brings an indictment, the case goes to trial.

The grand jury process only hears the DA's side, so it cannot clear or convict; it simply decides whether or not the DA has convinced the grand jury that there is enough evidence to warrant a trial at this time.

As I understand it, another grand jury could be convened at another time to try again to bring charges, so no one can be said to be "cleared" just because a particular DA failed (or didn't want) to convince a particular grand jury to bring charges at a particular time.

I don't know much about the case, but I suspect a better, less obviously biased, headline might have been "DA Refuses to Get Indictment in Police Killing".

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