Grand jury

In the common law legal system, a grand jury is a jury responsible for issuing indicts or investigating crimes. Most common law jurisdictions have abolished them, replacing them with judges; jurisdictions in the United States are the main exception to this. In a grand jury hearing, the jury hears the evidence presented by a prosecutor and issues or refuses to issue an indictment. The grand jury can compel witnesses to testify and the defendant and their counsel is not present during the proceding. In practice, a grand jury rarely acts in a manner contrary to the wishes of the prosecutor and as such many jurisdictions in the United States have replaced the formality of a grand jury with a procedure in which the prosecutor can issue charges by filing in information which is followed by a preliminary hearing before a judge at which both the defendant and his counsel is present.