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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices
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To: bentway who wrote (819532)11/28/2014 1:19:44 PM
From: i-node  Read Replies (2) of 1586343
 
It is the grand jury’s function not ‘to enquire … upon what foundation [the charge may be] denied,’ or otherwise to try the suspect’s defenses, but only to examine ‘upon what foundation [the charge] is made’ by the prosecutor. Respublica v. Shaffer, 1 Dall. 236 (O. T. Phila. 1788); see also F. Wharton, Criminal Pleading and Practice § 360, pp. 248-249 (8th ed. 1880). As a consequence, neither in this country nor in England has the suspect under investigation by the grand jury ever been thought to have a right to testify or to have exculpatory evidence presented.

The claim is not on-point and neither is the reference to Scalia's remarks.

A "right" to testify suggests Wilson would have been able to DEMAND to testify and thus been able to do so. A "requirement" to present exculpatory evidence is radically different from the prosecutor being ALLOWED to do so.

These may seem like unimportant distinctions to you and the idiot who wrote that story, as well as the innumerable websites that picked it up -- but they are big differences. The prosecutor gets to make that call.

There is nothing in Scalia's remarks that is, in any way, at odds with what happened in the Wilson grand jury.

This is a perfect example of how the left wing blog nutjobs, who understand nothing at all about the subject, will promote such a false comparison as though it were factual, probably out of ignorance but perhaps out of political expediency (because this is a political issue to you, not a legal one).
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