This is all my own opinion what I write here, but I write this after doing some research online about GJ, justice system and the DA. I did this research only for me, as I am from another country and do not understand the American Justice System like many other here do.
As I understand, the DA is a political party in this case and DA Hunter never wanted to move forward with the trial regardless of the results.
There's no indication Hunter never wanted a trial. But he was a careful man and he wanted to have a solid case to take before judge and jury - this is why, when it became clear that the police were not doing a comprehensive investigation, Hunter wanted his own investigators to work on the case. The end result was going to be a trial, but if the Ramseys had plea-bargained with a confession, no one would have been happier than Hunter.
One thing Schiller raises is that Hunter had gone out on a limb before - he had charged a woman whose lover had killed her child, while she had given testimony against her lover in exchange for not being charged in a deal with the police. But bowing to public outrage Hunter charged the woman too, which ended her cooperation and got the killer a lower sentence, all very embarrassing for Hunter and counterproductive for justice. After that, Hunter always wanted to take his time and have a strong case before trial, and not just charging because of public pressure.
He stalled with the GJ and went on with it because Gov. Romer insisted it after Thomas's letter.
When to go with a Grand Jury is a matter of differing opinions. This is because it can be used for multiple purposes. The regular one is to get indictments so you can go to trial. The other is to use it as an investigative tool with their subpoena power - this is what Kane favored and criticized Hunter over not doing sooner (that, of course is contingent on there being actual evidence to uncover). Hunter, though, wanted more solid evidence before going in, with the risk of no-billing being a thing.
As I have learned, it is rather rare for a DA to refuse to proceed with a grand jury true bill.
It's rare, but it's also rare for the political establishment to put so much pressure on a DA to charge an individual - or two, as in this case. There was the ongoing threat of replacing him with a special prosecutor, the addition of an outside prosecutor to handle the GJ (Kane) and the forced removal of Hunter's own investigators. It was not a normal situation to begin with.
The "insufficient evidence" remark does not matter, as DA is allowed to proceed with the case even then, and to my understanding, it is rather suggested that it would.
It usually is, but if the case ends up squeaking by with only four out of eighteen charges signed and no evidence that would save them from a sure-fire acquittal, then it's like Morrissey said. Going ahead with a trial when you don't have enough evidence to win is malpractice - and an injustice to the victim.
By not charging, Hunter left the door open for future evidence to emerge against the Ramseys with a potentially successful trial and conviction. No such evidence ever emerged, of course, but that's not Hunter's fault.
If there was no vote for True Bill, it would not be expected to go to trial by the GJ. But a True Bill was voted by the GJ and it was expected by the GJ that the case will proceed in trial.
But this was not a clean true bill. Only four out of eighteen charges were signed, and not the main ones - there was no charge signed for the murder of JonBenet.
Grand Jury only needs probable cause to indict someone. A reasonable belief of guilt.
And a prosecutor needs to provide evidence beyond a reasonable doubt for the case to prevail at trial. To go ahead with a trial despite not having that, just because the public demands it?
I understand that DA has the power to override it, and that is exactly what happened here. But this is rare. There are only a few cases where that has actually happened because GJ's almost always goes to trial.
Exactly! GJs vote to indict 95% of the time, so there's usually no issue. But here they only indicted for a partial, weaker set of charges.
And in the Ramsey case the Grand Jury allowed for the defense to testify and present their evidence, which is also very rare.
The GJ has subpoena power..they can request to hear from whoever they want. But the show is still run by the prosecutors, in this case Kane, and the defense had no say. Lou Smit testified because he had been part of the prosecutor's team.
Yes, Ramsey's did not testify, but their defense team did.
Calling it their defense team is wrong. Lou Smit (former part of the prosecution, not part of the defense) fought a legal battle to be able to present his evidence. Even so,.that was one day of a year's worth of unopposed prosecutorial presentations.
Why was this allowed? Isn't defense only allowed a voice when the DA doesn't want an indictment. Was that known previously? Then the GJ was just a show.
Smit first sent a letter to the GJ foreman, asking to be able to present evidence. Kane denied it, so Smit sued to be able to appear, and won. And there's a stark difference in that the prosecutors are always present, and Smit (while not divulging what his testimony was) said the prosecutors were confrontational and dismissive.
This wasn't some unbiased, equal session where the prosecution presents their case, the defense theirs and the GJ decides. This was the prosecution's show, start to end.
What I see is that even though there were things done wrong during the GJ - the defense was involved and allowed to show their evidence - the GJ still did choose to indict on the charges of child abuse resulting in death and accessory to murder.
The defense wasn't "allowed". Smit fought a legal battle to be able to present his evidence. The Ramseys had also requested to be heard, but the prosecutors denied them.
One for Patsy and one for John. They simply did not decide mutually on who did exactly what. So the GJ must have believed that Alex Hunter will go forward with the trial and the actual jury would later decide who did exactly what.
It's not clear at all that they must have believed that. The Grand Jury doesn't decide on strategy, they just decide on what the prosecution has been able to show probable cause for. If no evidence has been presented to show who killed JonBenet, then a trial jury - who needs evidence at a much higher standard - will not be able to decide that either - as the interviewed Grand Juror made clear he understood perfectly.
Even when Grand Jury recommended charges, Hunter still tried to hide this from public for months.
His statement was perfectly true. They didn't have enough evidence to go to trial and reach a conviction.
Public had the right to know and when the results were learned there were some attorneys who spoke out saying that Hunter's actions were questionable and that: "Proper legal procedure would have involved filing the document with the court and moving to dismiss the charges in open court."
Yet Hunter didn't reach this decision alone. He consulted with the involved prosecutors Kane, Morrissey and Levin, and as Morrissey later confirmed, they recommended Hunter do what he did.
The panel convened by governor Owens - the true political force in this case - came to the conclusion that Hunter hadn't erred.
The suggestion by the lawyer quoted above wouldn't have changed anything.
And this is why I believe that it did not happen because of lack of evidence, or not wanting to "spend the taxpayers money". This is just absurd, IMO.
Not to those who actually know the case and handled the Grand Jury. Kane has been pretty aggressively anti-Ramsey over the years, both Hunter and Morrissey suspected them - yet they didn't think there was enough evidence to prevail at a trial.
And neither did the interviewed Grand Juror.
The result of a trial can never be predicted beforehand and DA had no reason to just override them.
That is just not true. A case so weak only four out of eighteen charges were signed, and thirteen months of GJ hearings not turning up any new evidence, is a sure loser at trial. If you throw yourself off a ten story building you can't predict that a mattress delivery truck will not park right below you while you're in mid air - but you shouldn't bet on it either.
Unless the reasons of power, money and politics. That decision was purely political. IMO
How was it political? That if anything is absurd. No political pressure was ever evident on the Ramsey's behalf,.while one, arguably two governor(s) applied pressure against them.