The grand jury is an American institution, as familiar as our three branches of government and our system of checks and balances. But, unlike those other institutions, the grand jury has an aura of mystery about it, an aura backed by reality in the form of the stringent federal grand jury secrecy rules that, with few exceptions, keep all matters occurring before federal grand juries shrouded from public and judicial scrutiny.
These rules exist despite our American preference and predisposition for transparency and judicial review, and their end result has been that the grand jury is largely insulated from any outside check or monitor other than the individuals who convene the grand jury and ask the grand jury to act in accordance with their recommendations: federal prosecutors. In other words, we have entrusted the grand jury process to those who would have the grand jury act in accordance with their wishes—a situation that has spawned the dilemma of the hamstrung defendant.
