Opinion ID: 2615180
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: historical roots of the grand jury

Text: The origin of the grand jury is veiled in obscurity. [6] It has never been resolved whether the idea developed from ancient Roman law, [7] whether it was a Norman institution introduced into England by William the Conqueror, [8] or whether it developed in England out of Anglo-Saxon institutions. [9] The earliest recorded juries were employed to investigate and answer inquiries addressed to them by the king:    The function of the jury of presentment [grand jury] shows that it is the lineal descendant of these juries. It is summoned to discover and present to the king's officials persons suspected of serious crime. It is probable that the regular use of the jury for this purpose in the royal courts dates from the Assize of Clarendon.    It made the use of the presenting jury general, both in the courts held by the king's judges and the sheriff's tourns. We have seen that both at the Eyre and the tourn presentments were made by representative juries from the hundred. These juries could present either from their own knowledge or from the information of others, just as at the present day the grand jury may present matters which they themselves have observed, or, as is more usual, may endorse the indictments or accusations made by others. We have seen that in the thirteenth century the jury was selected, as directed by the Assize of Clarendon, from the several hundreds. Juries of this kind were needed to answer the detailed enquiries contained in the articles of the Eyre. But, when the general Eyre ceased, when criminal justice had come for the most part to be administered by either the itinerant justices acting under more limited commissions, or by the justices of the peace in quarter sessions, the method of the selection of the grand jury changed. The sheriff was directed to summon for the business either of the assizes or of the quarter sessions twenty-four persons from the body of the county. From these, twenty-three are chosen, a majority of whom decides whether to `find a true bill' or `ignore' the accusations preferred. The presentments made by the grand jury do not and never did amount to an assertion that the person presented is guilty. They are merely an assertion that he is suspected.    [I]n the thirteenth and earlier part of the fourteenth century all or some members of the grand jury always formed part of the petty jury; and the judges sometimes considered that when the members of a petty jury who had presented a person as suspected, acquitted him, they had contradicted themselves, and could be punished. But, as the grand jury came to be separated from the petty jury, the distinctive character of their functions was more clearly realized. It came to be recognized that the function of the grand jury is merely to say whether from the evidence for the prosecution (at which alone they look) there is probable ground of suspicion. (Footnotes omitted.) Holdsworth, History of English Law, Vol. I, p. 321-22 (1922). The criminal petit jury was preceded in historical development by the accusing (grand) jury and evolved from it. Holdsworth, supra. The Crown, interested in securing convictions, was opposed to the total elimination from the petit or trial jury of all the members of the presenting jury. As Parning, J., said in 1340: `If indicters be not there it is not well for the king.' Y.B. 14, 15 Ed. III (R.S.) 260. Holdsworth, supra at 325. Gradually, however, the grand jury and the petty jury became separated, and the feeling against the practice of including indictors in the trial jury became so pronounced that in 1351-1352 a statute was enacted which prevented an indictor from sitting on the trial jury of one indicted for felony or trespass if the accused challenged him. Wayne L. Morse, A Survey of the Grand Jury System, 10 Or.L. Rev. 101, 114 (1931). A grand jury serves a high function. As stated in United States v. Wells, 163 F. 313, 324 (D.C.Idaho 1908):    It is a familiar historical fact that the system was devised to prevent harassments growing out of malicious, unfounded, or vexatious accusations. That it serves the purpose of allowing prosecutions to be initiated by the people themselves in no way detracts from the fact that it still stands as a safeguard against arbitrary or oppressive action   . The same view was stated by Mr. Justice Field, sitting as Circuit Justice:    In this country, from the popular character of our institutions, there has seldom been any contest between the government and the citizen which required the existence of the grand jury as a protection against oppressive action of the government. Yet the institution was adopted in this country, and is continued from considerations similar to those which give to it its chief value in England, and is designed as a means, not only of bringing to trial persons accused of public offenses upon just grounds, but also as the means of protecting the citizen against unfounded accusation, whether it comes from the government, or be prompted by partisan passion or private enmity. Quoted from 2 Sawy 668 in United States v. Wells , Ibid.