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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsCan You Pass This Grand Jury Screening Test?
You may have seen our favorite (if not-so-shocking) headline this week: 100 Brains Missing in Texas!
Those brains have apparently since been accounted for. We doubt, however, that anyone found them on a grand jury. Not if that grand jury was deciding the fate of any white police officer who killed an unarmed black man.
New York is just the latest American city reeling from the disturbing reluctance of grand juries to hold police officers accountable in the New York case, despite clear documentary video evidence of the officers use of an illegal chokehold and an unambiguous ruling by the city medical examiner that the resulting death was a homicide.
We arent, of course, privy to the secret testimony heard by grand juries. But all of us have seen the footage of Officer Daniel Pantaleo using a chokehold to kill the unarmed Eric Garner. Weve heard Officer Darren Wilson call Michael Brown a demon. Other recent stories that have gotten less attention include two white police officers caught on video assaulting a black woman slamming her head on the counter, dragging her across the floor by her feet into a detox cell to await a strip search all over a supposedly unpaid parking ticket. While that woman received a cash settlement, the two officers who assaulted her were (surprise!) not indicted by the grand jury.
So we gotta ask: Who is serving on these grand juries?
Can it be just a bizarre coincidence that every grand jury decides that no police officer ever did anything wrong? Or is something more insidious going on here?
Thats when we unearthed this shocker: A copy of the questionnaire that all prospective members of grand juries must fill out before they are chosen to serve.
After reading it, at least we now know why weve never been asked to sit on a grand jury. This questionnaire, if it were a math test, would probably mark us wrong for saying 2+2=2+2. Still, someone has to serve, so there must be more than a few people who have passed this test and subsequently doled out what passes for justice in America.
So how would you do? Do you think YOU are qualified to serve on a grand jury in America? First you have to pass the official test. Good luck.
Original post, links and Grand Jury Test here: http://lesterandcharlie.com/2014/12/04/can-you-pass-this-grand-jury-screening-test/
fayhunter
(221 posts)Thank god.
bondwooley
(1,198 posts)scrubthedata
(382 posts)the justice system is failing as much as it is our attitudes -- new ones and outdated ones. Because grand juries can often stretch on for long periods, most of the people on them are retirees who fondly remember the 1950s. Is that really a jury of peers for the types of cases that we've been seeing lately?
yeoman6987
(14,449 posts)I failed. Well considering how long they take...the last one took 9 weeks. Far too long in my opinion. Heck trials often don't take that long.
bondwooley
(1,198 posts)they take, you'd think they'd come from better conclusions.
brooklynite
(94,572 posts)...and yes, I HAVE served on a Grand Jury.