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indago
02-05-2015, 08:34 AM
Journalist Tom Hays wrote for The Associated Press 5 February 2015:
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Two months after a grand jury declined to press criminal charges in the police killing of an unarmed New York City man, a state judge must decide whether to disclose details of the secret proceedings. The New York Civil Liberties Union and other petitioners have gone to court on Staten Island to demand that Judge William Garnett open the record in the Eric Garner case — a position opposed by Richmond Count District Attorney Daniel Donovan. Garnett is set to hear arguments at a hearing on Thursday morning. In court papers, the NYCLU cited the outcry over the grand jury's decision not to indict Daniel Pantaleo — the white New York Police Department officer seen on a widely watched video putting the unarmed black man in what the medical examiner called a fatal chokehold — as a compelling reason to make an exception to the long-standing practice of keeping the process secret.


...Such disclosure would "almost certainly have a chilling effect on the very type of witness cooperation that is most desired and the most difficult to obtain," the papers add.
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article (http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_POLICE_CHOKEHOLD_DEATH?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2015-02-05-02-26-36)


It is most certainly not unknown that sometimes, grand juries are led around by the nose by an unscrupulous prosecutor.

indago
08-13-2015, 09:58 AM
Journalist Ian Lovett wrote for The New York Times 12 August 2015:
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California: Grand Juries Are Barred From Deciding Cases Involving Police — The state has banned the use of grand juries to determine whether to prosecute a law enforcement officer in the death of a member of the public. ...Because grand jury testimony is often held in secret, Holly Mitchell, the author of the law, said that the change would increase trust in police officers and transparency in government.
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article (http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/13/us/california-grand-juries-are-barred-from-deciding-cases-involving-police.html?ref=todayspaper)

Prosecutors shouldn't be involved in assembling a Grand Jury in the first place. It should be the people who petition the Court for a Grand Jury investigation.