this post was submitted on 21 Aug 2026
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[–] LuminousLuddite@lemmy.today 2 points 22 minutes ago
[–] Tollana1234567@lemmy.today 2 points 34 minutes ago (1 children)

the idea of a grand jury is also crazy, basically they just decide wether to charge someone or not, not even a regular jury to determine if they are guilty or not. i heard getting called to GJ is worst than regular, because it can last alot longer.

[–] breakfastmtn@lemmy.ca 1 points 19 minutes ago

It's completely different from a trial jury though. They usually only meet once or twice a week. Sometimes a couple times a month.

[–] FlashMobOfOne@lemmy.world 9 points 3 hours ago* (last edited 3 hours ago)

Of course they didn't indict him.

I was having ribs with this dude. Couldn't have been him.

[–] ChunkMcHorkle@lemmy.world 25 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

That whole "a good prosecutor could indict a ham sandwich" was when you could pull your jurors out of a citizen pool that didn't walk in already believing you were lying through your fucking teeth.

But then they pulled the mask off, and let us all see how they are using the courts for vindictive prosecution and political harassment.

Looks like the ham sammich days are ending, lol.

[–] bedwyr@piefed.ca 8 points 5 hours ago (3 children)

I just heard about a prosecutor that didn't get all of his indictments and then sent the jurors that voted against him home and replaced them. That and other stuff, they aren't even pretending to follow the rules, they think everything is more openly corrupt than it is yet.

But anyway, the courts threw out like 200 indictments because this prick prosecutor didn't think he had to follow the rules/didn't know or care what the rules were.

[–] uriel238@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 points 53 minutes ago

The Department of Justice has been doing stuff like that a lot since the Trump administration, to the point that they lost presumption of regularity (the assumption in advance that state actors are being honest and following the rules in good faith). There were so many prosecutions that were clearly directed by the White House and were vindictive persecutions of political enemies that the judges just stopped believing anyone from DoJ.

It didn't help that all the honest prosecutors in DoJ resigned when they were ordered to do something unlawful, resulting in massive brain drain. All the rehires are unskilled if not incompetent, and sometimes they issue legal statements that sound like a Truth Social post.

[–] ChunkMcHorkle@lemmy.world 6 points 5 hours ago* (last edited 5 hours ago)

Holy shit. That's some arrogance right there, thinking no one would ever know or find out. Grand juries are secret, but they're not THAT secret.

they think everything is more openly corrupt than it is yet.

You nailed it.

[–] nobodysreadingthis@quokk.au 2 points 4 hours ago* (last edited 4 hours ago) (1 children)

They never pretended much. You're just looking at it now.

[–] bedwyr@piefed.ca 3 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

I called this decline into insanity and fascism back in the mid 90s. Also nailed global warming in 2000 or so, and called the nsa's bullshit years before snowden to name a few.

I am only right on the bad predictions, my good predictions are a shitshow.

[–] nobodysreadingthis@quokk.au 3 points 4 hours ago

I didn't get it that far back. I blame Pokémon. Except global warming. I was just kind of raised with it as a fact.

[–] culprit@lemmy.ml 153 points 8 hours ago* (last edited 8 hours ago) (4 children)

Jury Nullification is like the secret code of the US justice system.That's why most of the people that work for the system absolutely despised the whole idea.

[–] uriel238@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 points 51 minutes ago

Though this happened with the grand jury, which only needs a majority vote (sometimes a supermajority). It means a lot of people chose to nullify or didn't trust the prosecution to give a fair trial.

[–] LodeMike@lemmy.today 17 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

Any justice system actually. Common law especially though.

[–] bedwyr@piefed.ca 15 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

Common Law is better than codified law. That's the only reason we have juries and don't just let judges decide the fate of the accused. Can you imagine, in this country, judges the sole decider of your case?

The reason that the UK and US have had such cuntish law enforcement is not because of english common law. It should be noted the UK cancelled some of common law's basic tenants, like the right to a jury trial, not only afforded to indictable offenses, any crime with less than 3 years imprisonment is decided by their famously haughty aristocratic judges now.

[–] LodeMike@lemmy.today 7 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

They actually passed that??

[–] bedwyr@piefed.ca 9 points 5 hours ago

Yeah, first the Tories maybe 5-7 years back or so cancelled juries for crimes with less than 1 year imprisonment, then Starmer's labour party just upped it to all crimes less than 3 years.

In the late 19th century they also passed a law where if they thought jury tampering was going to happen they could just do it with a judge, idk how often they have used it though.

[–] Jake_Farm@sopuli.xyz 29 points 7 hours ago

The us justice system is already fucked up and make a joke lf the term justice.

[–] Imgonnatrythis@sh.itjust.works 3 points 5 hours ago (2 children)

I'm sure the GOP will figure out how to get rid of it soon enough

[–] Tollana1234567@lemmy.today 1 points 32 minutes ago

they will give him a secret trial, or disappear to one of thier concentration camps in the south, which would mostly be texas, and the msms will never ever report on a citizen getting detained, at least not a white one.

[–] ChunkMcHorkle@lemmy.world 9 points 5 hours ago* (last edited 5 hours ago)

They would have to get rid of juries altogether.

Given that our current legal system was created as a direct reaction to star chambers and baked into the constitution, they have an uphill climb, at the least.

[–] rockSlayer@lemmy.blahaj.zone 91 points 8 hours ago
[–] Bustedknuckles@lemmy.world 23 points 6 hours ago (2 children)

I believe the grand jury system is working as intended

[–] uriel238@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 44 minutes ago (1 children)

Curiously, when I was drafted into jury duty here in California, we were shown a video that said something like The people are society's last line of defense against bad law.

I took it personally, figuring it was my duty to not enforce any law that was unjust or protect any institution that was cruel. But I didn't get selected.

[–] Tollana1234567@lemmy.today 1 points 28 minutes ago

i was in JD last sept, it was a burglary case about a AA person, almost everyone used a variation of NULLIFICATION to get out of it. Also in cali, they try very hard to keep these people around. the only ones that excuse quickly is the one that already had professional knowledge of the law(lawyer from germany), and a lady who was in a case where she was a victm.

[–] bedwyr@piefed.ca 10 points 5 hours ago* (last edited 5 hours ago)

For once yes. Grand Juries at the time of the Constitution were a safeguard against arbitrary and unjust prosecutions. The rulers have since changed what a grand jury is to make it the opposite, a tool of the prosecutors.

Luckily the prosecutors for this administration are so arrogant and incompetent they haven't been able to maintain that facade of trustworthiness which the masses still afford to dickheads in suits with position.

Of course the judges are so bad it often doesn't matter, especially when it's in a shitholy jurisdiction, like those protesters at the Texas Ice that got kangarooed by their dipshit hanging judge down there under preposterous, blatantly unconstitutional charges, cancelling the 1st amendment.

[–] BooBees@fedinsfw.app 66 points 8 hours ago (3 children)

Probably because he was with some of them trading Pokémon cards at the time, couldn’t have been him, everyone has a doppelgänger

[–] fluffykittycat@slrpnk.net 17 points 8 hours ago (5 children)

Come to think of it, how accurately can facial recognition tell apart to people who look very similar?

[–] cecilkorik@lemmy.ca 25 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

Zero. Zero accurately. They don't even talk about it, because they don't care. The arbitrary cruelty is a bonus feature.

[–] bedwyr@piefed.ca 2 points 5 hours ago

I bet the manufacturers of these surveillance systems leave a wink wink way for authorities to slip a name in their systems as a hit for something too.

[–] BassTurd@lemmy.world 7 points 7 hours ago

Facial recognition has an inherent bias as well, or at least it did not too long ago. It was mostly trained on white people, so it's accuracy with non whites was really bad. I'm sure the training data is far more robust now, but that doesn't necessarily mean better.

[–] ToastedCoconuts@piefed.blahaj.zone 7 points 7 hours ago* (last edited 7 hours ago)

Not at all, but that’s the court’s problem I guess.

[–] nobodysreadingthis@quokk.au -2 points 4 hours ago

By recognizing faces. Obviously.

[–] Akh@lemmy.world 5 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

Nah you are confused he was with me feeding the homeless

[–] neomachino@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 points 7 hours ago

You must be mistaken, he was helping me load up my truck with mulch for the community garden. He even bought me lunch afterwards.

[–] nobodysreadingthis@quokk.au 0 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

He was actually at my place, we were cooking for the homeless. Terrorism actually, with lentils and curry. So which one would the state rather prosecute?

[–] atrielienz@lemmy.world 1 points 34 minutes ago

What does terrorism curry taste like?

[–] Ranjr@lemmy.world 39 points 8 hours ago (3 children)

They always bring up that quote about being able to indict a ham sandwich but they never specify the charges.

[–] davidgro@lemmy.world 12 points 7 hours ago

Also doesn't apply if that's ham as in cop.

[–] SolacefromSilence@fedia.io 1 points 5 hours ago

Exactly, twas not merely a ham sandwich, but a decadent smorgasbord of temptation, as charged.

[–] bedwyr@piefed.ca -2 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

Well back in the 90's a ham sandwich did choke to death some super obese woman celebrity. I don't know her name I only know of it secondhand because I don't watch that kind of entertainment television crap that I think she was.

[–] NOPper@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

You may be thinking of Mama Cass in the late 70s, who died of a heart attack but was popularly cited as choking on a ham sandwich?

[–] bedwyr@piefed.ca 3 points 5 hours ago

That is it, momma cass.

So the ham sandwich was framed? Those bastards! I think I did hear that before but didn't retain the information well.

[–] daychilde@lemmy.world 26 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

There is zero information on why they didn't indict, so I'm not celebrating until we find out why.

[–] BassTurd@lemmy.world 14 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

It could be that the software isn't accurate enough to be evidence on its own. Similar to how identifying someone in a lineup is notoriously inaccurate. They may be able to use it for probably cause in a search warrant, but without other supporting evidence, they may not have a case.

[–] klugerama@lemmy.world 15 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

The article mentions felony charges - it could also or instead be that it was too high a bar (pun intended) to indict when it should have been a misdemeanor vandalism charge.

[–] renrenPDX@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 35 minutes ago

Yeah this has been the case for grand juries I’ve been a part of. The DA is not interested in prosecution if the charges are misdemeanors only.