On Thursday, November 27, 2014 7:44:49 AM UTC-5, Kurt Ullman wrote:
In article , gonjah
wrote:


From what I gathered; there was a shooting, with eyewitnesses that
contested the cop's version of the story. That should have been enough
to indite. It wasn't the grand jury's job to determine who was telling
the truth. The prosecutor's softball cross examination didn't help
either. The whole thing was odd.
The GJ's job was to look at the evidence in total to see if there
was enough probable cause to indict. Grand jury members must hear
**all** aspects of the evidence before they take action. This evidence
typically consists of witness testimony and written documents. Grand
jury members may question witnesses and can decide how many witnesses
they want to hear. They can also subpoena more witnesses from anywhere
in the United States. (Emphasis added)
After the evidence has been presented, grand jury members must
deliberate to determine whether the evidence is sufficient to produce an
indictment -- also known as a "true bill" -- which is a formal criminal
charge. Grand jury members must ** evaluate all aspects of the
evidence*** and may request transcripts for clarification on previous
testimony or request that written documentation evidence be made
available for reference. If grand jury members decide there is no
probable cause to believe that a person has committed a crime, they can
vote for a "no bill," or "not a true bill," which frees the person from
having to plead to a criminal charge.


Exactly. If the bar for indictment was that there was an eyewitness
who's testimony conflicts with the accused, then you'd have 10X more
indictments all across the country. One of those eyewitnesses was
Brown's buddy who was a possible accomplice in the robbery 10 mins
before. His version was totally discredited and his obviously a liar.
I understand other eyewitnesses changed their stories along the way too,
admitting they didn't see key parts of what happened, if at all. The
GJ heard all that directly from the witnesses, determined how credible
each was, saw all the forensics and made their decision based
on the totality of it all.