What luiz said is correct, but I'll expand on it to try and make it a little easier for you to wrap your head around. We don't have grand juries in Australia either, so I looked into them earlier this week.
In som e parts of the US, the grand jury system exists. You mentioned earlier that you watch Law & Order, though you may have been kidding. They often mention grand juries in the show, but very seldom show them, because most cases that go before grand juries result in an indictment. An indictment is a decision to go to trial.
The grand jury itself is not a trial; it is merely to decide if the defendant has any case to answer. This is to prevent frivolous prosecutions; a prosecutor or police officer cannot merely repeatedly charge a person with crimes, forcing them to bankrupt themselves from defending themselves in court. Only the prosecution evidence is presented before a grand jury; the point of this is to determine whether or not there is even the potential of a crime to be answered for.
This is where the prosecutor in this case has failed to do his job. He has presented all of the evidence before the grand jury, which has - unsurprisingly - decided that Wilson acted in self-defence, and therefore there is no need for a trial; after all, the evidence indicates that Wilson is not guilty, and the grand jury can see that. Deciding upon guilt like this is not their usual job; that should be the job of a trial jury. But the prosecutor in this case has effectively acted as both prosecution and defence before the grand jury, preventing a trial from even taking place. That is wrong, and it should cost him his job; he should also be investigated, as apparently he has a near 100% success rate, but a 0% success rate in indicting cops. That is very suspicious.
) of the indictment process to effectively block police abuse of power cases from coming to trial? Do we need a judicial version of Internal Affairs to prosecute these cases?
