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Article: THE USEFUL, DANGEROUS FICTION OF GRAND JURY INDEPENDENCE
- Article from:
- American Criminal Law Review
- Article date:
- January 1, 2004
- Author:
CopyrightCopyright Georgetown University Law Center Winter 2004. Provided by ProQuest LLC. (Hide copyright information)
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"A fiction may be an expedient but false assumption."
Lon L. Fuller, Legal Fictions
The constitutional lore, nurtured by the Supreme Court, is that the federal grand jury is a "protective bulwark," whose central mission is to protect civil liberties and shield citizens from unfounded or abusive criminal charges.1 As a civil rights institution, however, the grand jury is an odd one. It is championed by the Department of Justice, which generally opposes any changes to grand jury procedures, even though it is federal prosecutors who are ostensibly being "checked" by the grand jury process. At the same time, the grand jury's operations frequently come under attack by the criminal defense bar, ...