MORE: Grand jury process not perfect, but needed
In Ohio, a person must be indicted by a grand jury before being tried on a felony charge that can send them to prison for years. That is not the case for lesser or misdemeanor charges that are handled by municipal and area courts and carry at most a sentence in a local jail for a few months, according to Butler County Prosecutor Michael Gmoser
Grand jurors come from the same pool of registered voters as jurors who hear trials, said Butler County Clerk of Courts Mary Swain. Grand jurors serve for three months in Butler County, meeting one or more times a week.
Nine citizens sit on a grand jury as opposed to 12 in at trial jury. Unlike a criminal trial jury, an indictment is secured when seven of the nine vote for the charge, returning what is know in the legal world as a “true bill.”
The grand jury’s job is to listen to evidence and determine if there is probable cause that a crime was committed. They are not triers of a person’s guilt, and the evidence is limited, so grand juries are not asked to find whether a person committed a crime “beyond a reasonable doubt” as trial juries do.
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The prosecutor presents the evidence to the grand jury, and there are no defense attorneys allowed in the proceeding.
Gmoser said Wednesday that the grand jury is independent from police agencies and prosecutors
“They are entitled to make their own decision, and those decision are what guide the prosecution of cases,” he said. “The grand jury decided at this time in history there was insufficient evidence that rose to a level of at least probable cause with admissible evidence to proceed to a trial. But that does not mean that the case is over. I would rather have this happen now, (rather) than acquittal on evidence that was insufficient to convict.”
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