Common Law Citizen’s Grand Juries: WE’VE GOT THE POWER

It’s clear. Our probably–not–really–elected “officials” lack the vision of our forefathers and of the American people today. So, it is time for The People to by-pass these “officials” as well as the entire corporate government system and do the right thing. It is time for us to form our own methods of dealing with those who harm others and do so according to Common Law / Natural Law.

The Bill of Rights, the foundation of the American Constitution, provides for indictment (a formal charge of a serious crime) only by a jury of ordinary people. This jury, under Common Law, is called a Grand Jury. The Grand Jury is typically made up of 12-23 regular people and is responsible for investigating potential criminal conduct to determine whether charges should be brought. (According to Wikipedia, the United States is the only Common Law jurisdiction in the world that still uses the Grand Jury to screen criminal indictments. Other countries use other types of preliminary hearings.)

Our dilemma has been, most judges today deny that We The People have the power to convene Grand Juries. This is due to deceptive wording in the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure which you can read for yourself under Title III, Rule 6  (note the phrase “legally qualified persons”). Nevertheless, the Constitution still provides for The People (“several individual citizens”) to convene and administer due process as per the words of King John in the Magna Carta, “[n]o free man shall be taken or imprisoned … or in any way destroyed, nor will we go upon him nor send upon him, except by the lawful judgment of his peers or by the law of the land.” The law of the land is Common Law / Natural Law.

The practice and rules of law have been distorted and fed to a supposed “elite” club of programmed, not necessarily educated, specialists sworn to the Crown (British Aristocratic Registry or B.A.R. attorneys). Now we see this. Now we know. So now we have a responsibility to rectify it. And we have LEGAL AND LAWFUL precedent for the re-establishment of citizen’s Grand Juries in the United States. In a stunning 6 to 3 decision Justice Antonin Scalia, writing for the majority, confirmed that the American grand jury is neither part of the judicial, executive nor legislative branches of government, but instead belongs to the people.  Read the case here. Here is a bullet point summarization of the court’s 1992 decision:

• [The grand jury] is a constitutional fixture in its own right.
• The Fifth Amendment demands a traditional functional “common law” grand jury.
• The Grand Jury is an institution separate from the courts.
• The courts do not preside over the functioning of the “common law” grand jury.
• The courts have no “supervisory” judicial authority over the “common law” grand jury.
• The Grand Jury belongs to no branch of the institutional government, serving as a kind of buffer or referee between the Government and the people”.
• The Grand Jury’s functional independence from the judicial branch is evident both in the scope of its power to investigate criminal wrongdoing, and in the manner in which that power is exercised.
• The Grand Jury can investigate merely on suspicion that the law is being violated, or even because it wants assurance that it is not.
• The Grand Jury need not identify the offender it suspects, or even the precise nature of the offense
• it is investigating.
• The Grand Jury requires no authorization from its constituting court to initiate an investigation, or to seek a indictment.
• The Grand Jury operates without the interference of a presiding judge.
• The Grand Jury swears in its own witnesses and deliberates in total secrecy.
• The Grand Jury remain “free to pursue its investigations unhindered by external influence or supervision so long as it does not trench upon the legitimate rights of any witness called before it.
• The Fifth Amendment’s “constitutional guarantee presupposes an investigative body ‘acting independently of either prosecuting attorney or judge.
• The Double Jeopardy Clause of the Fifth Amendment does not bar a grand jury from returning an indictment when a prior grand jury has refused to do so.
• The Sixth Amendment right to counsel does not attach when an individual is summoned to appear before a grand jury, even if he is the subject of the investigation.
• It would run counter to the whole history of the grand jury institution to permit an indictment to be challenged on the ground that there was incompetent or inadequate evidence before the grand jury.

In another case, Justice Powell in United States v. Calandra, 414 U.S. 338, 343 (1974) states: “The grand jury’s historic functions survive to this day. Its responsibilities continue to include both the determination of whether there is probable cause to believe a crime has been committed and the protection of citizens against unfounded criminal prosecutions. Branzburg v. Hayes, 408 U.S. 665, 686-687 (1972).”

Hal Von Luebbert, author of Citizen Power Now, says: “Think about it. When you go to a trial, the charges are brought by ‘The People.’  The jury decides whether you are innocent or guilty, not the judge. The jury does not have to follow the law. In fact, the jury can ignore the law and set free an obviously guilty person if they want. The jury is the final word, not the judge, not the prosecutors. The power to create freedom belongs to the jury.”

It’s clear to see, as Scalia quoted in U.S. v. Williams, The People sitting as Grand Jurors is “a constitutional fixture in its own right.” Now the question is, will We The People claim that right?

The question of enforcement is no question at all when we stand in honor TOGETHER. The power is in numbers; THE POWER IS OURS. IT TIME TO CLAIM IT!

In Absolute Love,

Cindy Kay