In the common law, a grand jury is a type of jury which determines whether there is enough evidence for a trial. Grand juries carry out this duty by examining evidence presented to them by a prosecutor and issuing indictments, or by investigating alleged crimes and issuing presentments. A grand jury is traditionally larger than and distinguishable from a petit jury, which is used during a trial.

History

The first grand jury was held in England in 1166. The grand jury was recognized by King John in the Magna Carta in 1215 on demand of the nobility. Its roots stretch back as early as 997 A.D., when an Anglo-Saxon king, Ethelred the Unready, charged an investigative body of his reign that it should go about its duty by accusing no innocent person, and sheltering no guilty one.Fact: date=January 2008

In the early decades of the United States grand juries played a major role in public matters. During that period counties followed the traditional practice of requiring all decisions be made by at least 12 of the grand jurors, so that for a size of 23 a bare majority would be 12. Any citizen could bring a matter before it directly, from a public work that needed repair, to a delinquent official, to a complaint of a crime, and they could conduct their own investigations. In that era most criminal prosecutions were conducted by private parties, either a law enforcement officer, a lawyer hired by a crime victim or his family, or even by laymen, who could bring a bill of indictment to the grand jury, and if the grand jury found there was sufficient evidence for a trial, that the act was a crime under law, and that the court had jurisdiction, then by returning the indictment to the complainant, it appointed him to exercise the authority of an attorney general, that is, one having a general power of attorney to represent the state in the case. The grand jury served to screen out incompetent or malicious prosecutions. The advent of official public prosecutors in the later decades of the 19th century largely displaced private prosecutions, but also led to them capturing grand juries and using them in ways for which they were not originally intended.

In Ireland grand juries were active from medieval times in the English-controlled parts of the island, mainly functioning as local government authorities at the county level, as well as having a pre-trial judicial function for serious criminal cases. Members were usually wealthy landowners, farmers and merchants, who selected new members. From 1691 to 1793 Roman Catholics were excluded from membership. They were replaced by democratically-elected County Councils by the Act of 1898.cn: date=July 2008

Today

Grand juries are today virtually unknown outside the United States. England abandoned grand juries in 1933 and instead uses a committal procedure, as do all Australian jurisdictions. In Australia, although the State of Victoria maintains provisions for a grand jury in the Crimes Act 1958 under section 354 Indictments, it has been used on rare occasions by individuals to bring other persons to court seeking them to be committed for trial on indictable offenses. New Zealand abolished the grand jury in 1961. Canada abolished it in the 1970s. Today approximately half of the states in the U.S. employ them, and only twenty-two require their use, to varying extents. Most jurisdictions have abolished grand juries, replacing them with the preliminary hearing at which a judge hears evidence concerning the alleged offenses and makes a decision on whether the prosecution can proceed.