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Re:Feds Threatened to Fine Yahoo $250K Daily for Not Complyi... by random42 on Friday September 12, 2014 @03:24AM (#8306915)
Well.. I dont. what purposes do indictments serve?
Re:Feds Threatened to Fine Yahoo $250K Daily for Not Complyi... by dredmorbius on Friday September 12, 2014 @06:05AM (#8307320)
It's the prosecution making its strongest possible case against the defendant. It's not a court finding of fact or law, but the one-sided case made by the prosecutorial team.
Re:Feds Threatened to Fine Yahoo $250K Daily for Not Complyi... by lambda on Friday September 12, 2014 @09:05AM (#8307767)
An indictnment is a charge; it is the prosecutors formal presentation of the evidence collected so far that show's that there's enough evidence that a trial should be held.

As such, it's fairly one-sided. It's just what the prosecutor has presented to a grand jury, and the grand jury has said "yeah, that looks like enough evidence that it's worth having a trial." Note also that grand juries these days pretty much always just rubber-stamp whatever the prosecutor puts in front of them.

Re:Feds Threatened to Fine Yahoo $250K Daily for Not Complyi... by lotsofmangos on Friday September 12, 2014 @09:19AM (#8307846)
I've posted this before on the subject, but I particularly like the description given by Ken White at Popehat:

"Rather than tread over the ground well-described by my colleagues in the criminal defense bar, today I'd like to describe something else for you: what a federal grand jury proceeding looks like. From 1995 through 2000, I presented cases of varying complexity to federal grand juries as a federal prosecutor in Los Angeles. That experience did not inspire confidence in the process. Rather, it taught me that the adage that a grand jury will indict a ham sandwich is an understatement. A better description would be that the prosecution can show a grand jury a shit sandwich and they will indict it as ham without looking up from their newspapers. The notion that the Supreme Court relies upon — that the grand jury has a "historical role of protecting individuals from unjust persecution" — is not a polite fiction. A polite fiction would have some grounding in reality. It's an offensive fiction, an impudent fiction, a fiction that slaps you across the face and calls your mother a dirty bitch."

http://www.popehat.com/2014/02/27/the-kaley-forfeiture-decis...

Re:Feds Threatened to Fine Yahoo $250K Daily for Not Complyi... by SideburnsOfDoom on Friday September 12, 2014 @03:59AM (#8306988)
To indict.