Abstract
This Article proceeds in four parts. Part I introduces the theoretical frameworks for various questions involving police-suspect grand juries, including the structure and function of contemporary grand juries, the law surrounding examinations into an officer’s use of force, modern prosecutorial influences, findings from social psychologists on the impacts of diversity on jury decision-making practices, and how police-suspect grand juries implicate unique political pressures.
Part II presents a description of original methods of data collection. To investigate this setting, forty-seven in-depth, semi-structured interviews with twenty-one respondents in five field sites around the country was conducted. Respondents included civilians and legal
professionals working in the domain of police-suspect investigations and prosecutions.
Part III clarifies why police-suspect prosecutors have trouble filing and winning indictments, including the secrecy surrounding grand jury procedures, limited grand jury selection processes, and the unrepresentative ideological composition of grand juries, which skew more politically conservative.
Finally, Part IV presents four solutions to the problems uncovered in the previous Parts of this Article, including the dissemination of publicly available prosecutorial explanations regarding their grand jury presentations, the use of special grand juries, the use of updated forms of jury empanelment, and the development and implementation of federal resources to expand police-suspect prosecutorial expertise and experience.
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2025
Repository Citation
Friedman, Ilana M., "How Grand Jury Secrecy and Bias Protects and Perpetuates Police-Suspect Impunity" (2025). Law Faculty Scholarly Articles. 810.
https://uknowledge.uky.edu/law_facpub/810
Notes/Citation Information
Ilana M. Friedman, How Grand Jury Secrecy and Bias Protects and Perpetuates Police-Suspect Impunity, 103 Or. L. Rev. 379 (2025).