Specific Question about the DC gun case and the Supreme Court - Incorporation

Great Debates
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[QUOTE=Andrew Bird]
If a state pursues criminal charges against an individual the state does not have to get a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury before they can try that individual. Basically, individuals have no right to a indictment from a grand jury.

The text is:

“No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger”

As noted above individuals do not have a right jury trial in civil cases if the trial is a state trial.
[/QUOTE]

Well, that’s not true as many States include the same right in their Constitutions.

22

From the context, I think Andrew Bird is asserting that an individual does not have a right under the federal Constitution to have a grand jury in state prosecutions.

State constitutional law may give a right to a grand jury, but if the state abolished it, that action would be constitutional under the federal constitution (subject to the due process concerns outlined by Polycarp).