> Considering that grand juries would indict a ham sandwhich
I am not American. When I hear about grand juries in American media, it is usually when they refuse to indict in a case of brutality or killing by police officers, even though there is clear evidence about the incident. It seems that grand juries never indict anyone, not the other way around. Where do grand juries' biases lie in reality?
Grand juries give you the result the prosecutor wants. The ham sandwich tounge-in-cheek joke is that usually the prosecutor wants to indict, otherwise why would they bother going to a grand jury. For police officer involved brutality/killings, it's usually the opposite. The prosecutor doesn't want to bring the case (since their office needs to work with cops to prosecute civilians) but there's political pressure from the community, so the prosecutor brings the case to the grand jury & scuttles the indictment.
A huge improvement is probably actually to just remove the grand jury. That way prosecutors can't hide behind the "well I wanted to indict but the grand jury didn't let me" while removing the guilty by association act of "well a jury clearly thought the indictment had merit".
The grand jury's bias is the bias of the prosecutor trying to convince them on a one sided case. The prosecutor is the one explaining the law to them and trying to get them to agree with their view. When there's no defense to provide a rebuttal it's a lot easier to convince a jury.
I am not American. When I hear about grand juries in American media, it is usually when they refuse to indict in a case of brutality or killing by police officers, even though there is clear evidence about the incident. It seems that grand juries never indict anyone, not the other way around. Where do grand juries' biases lie in reality?