By Chuck Hustmyre
(Continued)
A Grand Jury Pobe
In December, Lacy announced that she had empanelled a grand jury to investigate the case. The secret panel has been meeting weekly since late October, according to a District Attorney's Office press release.
Grand juries are rare in criminal cases in Colorado. According to the Boulder Daily Camera, only three Boulder County grand juries have been empanelled to investigate homicide cases in the last 20 years. All three met for more than a year. None returned indictments.
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| DA Mary Lacy |
Some of Lacy's critics have suggested that the grand jury is just another way to stall the case.
Former Deputy District Attorney Laurence "Trip" DeMuth III, who prosecuted violent crime in Boulder for 17 years and who ran unsuccessfully against Lacy for District Attorney in 2000, told Crime Library that savvy prosecutors can use a grand jury to dump a case.
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| Laurence "Trip" DeMuth III |
"If a case is not provable," DeMuth said, "and the evidence is presented to a grand jury and the grand jury decides that there is not probable cause, it does, in some instances, get the DA off the hook."
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