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comment by user-inactivated
user-inactivated  ·  3408 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: What Happened in Ferguson?

    No, not a good thing...a terrible thing! A jury is a panel of regular folks. They are not trained legal practitioners. They are in NO WAY qualified to decide what the appropriate charges should be in a case.

I assume juries who indict people when they haven't been given a list of charges they have to conform don't pull things out of their ass. I imagine it's more like: here are the 2000 whatever possible legal charges, pick some; as opposed to, here are the three things you are allowed to charge this person with, pick some. At least I hope so. That seems to increase the options the jury has, if they are willing to put some work in.