Grand Jury Impanelment Hearing

[Kyung]

What is this? Is this difficult? Is this like voir dire?

Any info would be appreciated.

Thanks

[Phil Stillerman]

I never did one, so my guess is that it would be similar to a regular jury voir dire of mostly old, retired, people

[Erica Abbott]

Hello. I do Grand Jury for my home county sometimes when I am available. What it is, I believe from the description given by Cassandra below, is the same thing I do here in NY. Here we have a DA and a few ADAs and what they do is have a list of cases that are on for that particular day. The defendant is not present, only a few witnesses for each case (usually officers). The DA or ADA that is putting a particular case on out of the list just asks the witnesses questions in front of a jury (19-23 people). When that is done, everyone leaves the room except the jury and the jury decides whether or not to indiicte the accused. Unfortunately, they do read into the record the charges and the law associated with each charge, and because there are usually 8 to 10 cases for one day, they talk fast. Usually they do not ask for transcripts ever though, so I mostly end up charging an appearance fee. Hope this helps. lol

[Phil Stillerman]

Erica
That's interesting. In the early 70s when I did some Grand Jury (Dutchess County) work all the scenarios you mentioned (police officers, witnesses testifying) had to be typed up (I started on a manual typewriter, graduated to an IBM Selectric). One copy only, went to the DA to be sealed (I think) and the reporter was paid a per-page fee. Since I was an official in family court, and just subbing in Grand Jury I could not charge an appearance fee. I don't know that the procedure has changed any since then, other than the fact that they now have two reporters assigned to the DAs office.

[Kyung]

Update. Not like voir dire at all.

Showed up at 9 a.m. Set up. Sat around for an hour.

They had jury panel orientation. Are you available. Do you need to be excused. Sit here. Sit here.

Judge came in with 2 judges.. Spoke for 2 minutes, just intro stuff. Left. Prospective jurors came up to the magistrate judges to try to get dismissed. After everybody spoke w/a magistrate judge. Chief judge came back in.

More blah, blah, blah about their duties and responsibilities, blah, blah, blah. Clerk reads off members of jury. Judge decides on who will be foreperson. Alternative jury panel members read off. Foreperson and deputy foreperson decided upon.

Everyone sworn in. Interesting. Pretty easy. It's just whipping through all those jury names. But at least I get the jury list w/the names of the grand jury members in case they ever want a transcript, which I doubt.