[ohitsdom]

Wow, the concept of citizens' panels sounds awesome. I wish we had something similar in the US. It's the perfect solution for dealing with police shootings, where prosecutors are reluctant to indict an officer (since they need to work closely with police in their everyday work).

[baseballmerpeak]

A pre-trial in the court of public opinion? I thought that is the purpose of grand juries. After all, a grand jury would indict a ham sandwich. (Though not all pork, evidently)

On one hand, it's a massive waste of judicial bandwidth. On the other, it's an effective check on the coziness between AGs, DAs, and law enforcement organizations.

[dragonwriter]

The difference seems to be that a US grand jury can indict on a prosecutors motion (and even, IIRC, in certain cases independently), but no one is obligated to prosecute based on an indictment once it is issued (obviously, one sought by a prosecutor will probably usually be followed up on by that prosecutor.)

But, from the description in the article, when a citizens' panel finds that charges should be issued after a prosecutor has decided not to prosecute, the case is reopened by prosecutors. Assuming this isn't just a reconsideration where the prosecutor can again decide not to actually prosecute the charges, this is a fairly substantial difference.

[tedunangst]

Isn't this the role fulfilled by Nancy Grace? When she decides somebody needs to be prosecuted, she talks about it on her show until charges are filed. (And then pronounces the defendant guilty.)

[walshemj]

Or as we know it in the UK trial by tabloid :-(

[Mithaldu]

On the other hand, japan also has the concept of "guilty until proven innocent". I don't know if and how it applies in this case, but you might be making a monkey paw wish there.

[rayiner]

If history is any guide, they'd mostly be used to indict minorities for crimes when prosecutors wouldn't go forward with the case: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynching#United_States