England. That's the short answer. A1919 U.S. Supreme Court Case written by Justice Pitney lays out the basic history of the Grand Jury system. Blair v. U.S. (1919) 250 U.S. 273, 279–280. When the colonies were still controlled by England, forcing people to testify in a grand jury was long established practice anchored to 1562 British law. The Court pointed to a 1612 British case that said that the King is entitled to the tribute and service of his subjects which includes their knowledge if its relevant to the a potential controversy before the royal court.
On the left is Justice Pitney who looks like he's down in the pits.
According to Constitution Annotated, (a website discussing the Fifth Amendment find it here) The Grand Jury was stated in the Charter of Liberties and Privileges of 1683, which the Colony of New York's first assembly passed in 1683. That's about 93 years before the 1776 US Revolution. Apparently James Madison's Bill of rights included it and it was so obvious that it appears there was no debate. So the Duke of York, James was the "colonial proprietor" of New York. Colonial Proprietors were people the king gave the right to settle, tax and administer lands to. Essentially they were like mini-kings but still owed their power and loyalty to the King. It was James who ordered the independent assembly in New York, because it was the legal fashion at the time and James was politically weak. At this time, it was a kind of automation to allow the colony you control to self-govern because of course, you are physically so far away. The theory would be it would grow, become profitable but remain loyal and the King and the Duke of York would have another revenue stream. I know this off topic a bit but helps give context to how the Grand Jury system got here and then why a colony is adopting this self-governance charter.
This is the Duke of York in rather flamboyant attire proving that today's wardrobes are nothing new.
The reason the British used a grand jury was to ensure that the charges being brought against an accused are based on viable evidence. This prevented arbitrary prosecutions by the Crown or the Government. This is important because just being charged with a crime takes a toll on people. It's expensive to defend against and there's a social stigma for just being accused by law enforcement. If you did not do something wrong, law enforcement would not have charged you a crime. That's what the old saying, "Where's there's smoke, there's fire" is pointing to. Yet, everyone also knows that suspicion is not grounds enough to convict. So the Grand Jury is made of regular people to examine the evidence the prosecutor has and decide if there is enough evidence to even bring a case. That means they can tell the prosecutor that there's not even enough evidence to bring a case. The idea is that if it's up to the court, prosecutor and police they will always bring a case because they work for the authorities. Some of them may have been appointed by a politician. All of this could be nothing more than a political witch hunt. Thus, the grand jury was made up of ordinary citizens who have no job to protect or hopes to be appointed to some position decide whether or not the government has any basis to bring charges.
The Grand Jury also operates differently from a trial. In fact, it is not a trial at all. It is like a preliminary hearing. In many cases a suspect is arrested somewhere outside of court. At the time of the arrest, the situation is such that there is no independent judge reviewing the criteria of investigation and arrest. We would not want that. If someone was being robbed and the police apprehend the suspect, we would not want a judge to come down and make decisions about the arrest at the time. The emergency circumstances of a lot of criminal arrests (not all) argue that we should allow the police to deal with the immediate danger at hand in a trained and official manner. However, before the prosecutor can then take the next step and file charges against the accused, a judge needs to determine if there is enough evidence that supports "probable cause" to actually charge the accused.
The law has varying standards requiring varying levels of evidence. At the police investigation stage, the police need reasonable suspicion that someone committed a crime to inconvenience a citizen to investigate but this not an arrest. A police officer needs "probable cause" to actually arrest someone. Arrest generally means being taken into custody. This is higher than reasonable suspicion but it's still less than 50/50. Civil cases are proven by preponderance of the evidence which is described as slightly more than 50% that the person is guilty of the wrong. At the preliminary hearing a judge tests the probable cause to arrest and/or to charge the accused with the crime. In the Grand Jury setting, ordinary people are looking at what the prosecution has as evidence and determining if there is probable cause.
So essentially all the Grand Jury is determining is based on what Jack Smith says he is charging Trump with, given the evidence and testimony, is there probable cause. A group of ordinary citizens have said yes, there is. It's fitting that a group of ordinary citizens can vote based on presented evidence to charge Trump who is accused of trying to ignore the votes of American citizens to steal the presidential election. Will he be convicted in an actual trial where the standard of proof is the highest, meaning will a jury vote to convict him because they find him guilty BEYOND A REASONABLE DOUBT? That will be remained to be seen.
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