• Astrealix@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Genuine question: don’t the jury need to be unbiased? Presumably already hard enough with someone like trump, but wouldn’t a death threat create reasonable concerns about bias against the side that does the threatening?

    • vinylshrapnel@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      IANAL but my understanding is the grand jury’s job is to decide whether or not to indict based on evidence presented to them. Once indictment is recommended by the grand jury, and a plea of “not guilty” is made then it goes to trial, where a new trial jury is selected. The original grand jury members aren’t even part of the actual trial if an indictment is recommended. In this instance, the grand jury recommended indictments and soon after their info was leaked and then threats were made. There shouldn’t have been any pressured bias due to death threats in the decision to indict, because it happened after the fact.

      • Odigo2020@lemmy.zip
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        1 year ago

        Just a quick clarification: The names weren’t leaked, as Georgia law requires the listing of juror names, ostensibly for reasons of transparency, which I think is pretty dangerous in practice, as we see now.

        • vinylshrapnel@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Thanks for the clarification. The names are indeed listed in the indictment. What was being shared is their pictures and social media profiles for harassment purposes.