An indictment, whether or not it’s handed up in federal or state court docket, is a proper accusation — not a conviction — and it’s among the many first strikes a prosecutor could make to convey a case to trial.

When an individual is indicted in a prison court docket within the United States, it implies that a grand jury composed of residents chosen at random believed there was sufficient proof to cost that individual with a criminal offense. Such panels, typically convened by judges on the request of prosecutors, meet for weeks, and may hear proof in quite a lot of circumstances. The choose just isn’t current throughout grand jury proceedings after the jurors are chosen, and jurors are in a position to ask the witnesses questions.

Unlike a prison trial, the place a jury has to achieve a unanimous verdict, a grand jury can difficulty an indictment with a easy majority.

Grand jurors hear proof and testimony solely from prosecutors and the witnesses that they select to current. They don’t hear from the protection or often from the individual accused, in contrast to in a prison trial the place proceedings are adversarial.

That one-sided association typically leads protection legal professionals to reduce indictments and argue that prosecutors can simply persuade jurors to indict.

After an indictment is unsealed, prosecutors share their proof with protection attorneys, who typically ask a choose to dismiss the case on varied authorized grounds.

It can take months for a case to go to trial, as either side argue over varied parts of the continuing, together with what proof could be introduced to a jury.