Judging from context, I am guessing a Grand Jury is used to determine if a crime has actually been commited, and/or if Person X should be brought to court.
But who sits on a Grand Jury? And what are they actually used for?
Grand = Large (as in number of people).
Petit = Small (as in number of people).
Petit jury sits at the trial, Grand jury determines if government has potential case.
A Grand Jury normally has a panel of 23 people, not counting alternates and such that are empaneled in case somebody gets sick or otherwise has to leave.
The Constitution requires an indictment by a grand jury before anyone can be convicted in Federal court of a felony; the old common law requirement, still in place in many states, says the same.
While a petit jury is required to find the defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in order to convict, a grand jury must only find that there is reasonable cause to believe that the accused may have committed the felony of which he is accused – a much lower standard. If it so finds, it returns a true bill against him, which constitutes an indictment for the crime; if it believes there is inadequate evidence to bring him to trial, it returns a no bill in his case.
Thanks to both for your responses.
A (perhaps) related question would be…Is Federal Grand Jury selection relatively the same as local (say, county) jury selection?
The Federal Grand Jury, to the best of my knowledge, is just one of those things that you can get called for if your name comes up, just like jury duty of any kind. Federal grand jurors do get a nicer stipend.
In Los Angeles County, CA, you can volunteer to be on the County Grand Jury. The County Grand Jury usually has an annual investigation of some kind. That is the function of the Civil Grand Jury. We also have a separate Criminal Grand Jury, whose primary job is to hand down indictments. But it also starts investigations from time to time.
The Civil Grand Jury serves for a year, but the Criminal Grand Jury only serves for a month.