Having served on a grand jury in the past, I know the following is true and it can be confirmed with any Prosecutor or Judge:
The Grand Jury is an independent investigative body and has the full authority to return indictments for crimes it believes have been committed in Pocahontas County. And here is the most important part: The Grand Jury is NOT LIMITED to returning only those indictments presented/prepared by the Prosecutor and/or any special Prosecutor.
Ordinarily, the Grand Jury deliberates on just the cases presented to it by the Prosecutors. However, the Judge is required to instruct the Grand Jury that if it believes there are other crimes that have been committed in Pocahontas County which have not been presented to it by the Prosecutors, the Grand Jury has the right and duty to instruct the Prosecutor and/or Special Prosecutor to prepare indictments for those crimes so that they may deliberate on the same.
In short, the Grand Jury, ON ITS OWN, without the involvement of any prosecutor, can return an indictment for crimes not presented to it by the prosecutors.
Bottom line: The Grand Jury does not need Donna nor Via to show up. They can request the Judge to instruct the State Police officer who investigated the Wilfong matter to appear before them to provide them with his complete investigation, including the charges he filed in Magistrate Court against Wilfong. The Grand Jury can request the Judge's office to have an indictment prepared reflecting those charges.
The Grand Jury receives a lot of instructions from the Judge; the one I have described above usually gets lost among all the other instructions. This is, however, a way around the apparent lackluster effort by the Prosecutors in the Wilfong matter.
"The Wilfong Case"--Hallelujah, someone who knows the law. THAT IS EXACTLY RIGHT. There is a lot of corrupt behavior going on in this county and it seems that from our sheriff on down few people want to do anything about it.
But now the grand jury has an opportunity to start the ball rolling in Pocahontas County. So what if Donna and David are hell-bent on letting Wilfong go free of his crime! Go ahead and indict the crooks in this county.
Maybe the foreman of that grand jury will step forward and call for a full-scale investigation of corruption in this county!
I am now convinced that this is a farce, a pretense to get the people off the back of our sheriff and prosecutor. It is no strange thing to me that Donna is having an operation five days before Grand Jury and J.L. is no where to be seen. True, a special prosecutor has been brought in but we are getting word that he, too, doesn't want to prosecute an officer of the law. We believe that he is convinced to let Wilfong go on this one.
I am now really worried about a case that is going in front of the Grand Jury in August. If the Prosecutor is not there and J.L. has to take over that makes me really worried. This is a case that involves me although I am not the defendant. Someone hurt me very bad and now I am worried that he will be offered a plea bargain and I will not have any say so in this matter. J.L. is notorious for offering pleas and in my opinion this person should stand trial and hopefully get the punishment that he deserves before he hurts someone else. The state has took over my case so therefor if the state accepts any pleas then it is out of my hands. I was told that I may not even get to testify. Yes I am scared of this man but I also want the opportunity to tell the jury what happened to me. If a plea is offered, will I get a chance to say no I want to take it to court or is my opinion invalid after this? I do not want to see any other women hurt by this man. I was lucky and do not ever want to be around him again, but what about his next victim. There has been enough cases against him to be tried as a felon so therefor he has the potential to do it again. I am not the first and if he isn't put behind bars I will not be the last. I also frown upon the way women are done in matters like this. I was hospitalized by this man and still I feel like I am being treated like the perpetrator. That is why most women do not speak up on domestic violence and rape situations. If anyone has any answers please let me know. I hope that the state can not just say, "It's ok, just don't do it again." That is what a plea bargain means in my opinion.
Women, please speak up and do not let yourself go through the torture and misery that I did before I finally had enough. Do not let these men get away with it anymore. Domestic Violence is wrong and it not only hurts you but it also hurts your kids. They grow up thinking that behavior like that is normal. The little girls think that it is ok to be hit, and the little boys grow up thinking that it is ok to hit someone.
Also, domestic violence can go the other way and sometimes it is the men that are being abused by the women. Either way it is not ok to hit or hurt someone else. There are other ways to solve problems.
Most of the time these things are done behind closed doors and with no witnesses around. In my case however there was witnesses and hospital reports that corroborate everything that happened. This case should be very easy to judge. I just hope that plea bargains are not going to be used this time.
You can't offer plea bargains at the Grand Jury. The Grand Jury just decides if there is sufficient evidence to bring the matter to trial. (Indictment)
and even if, down the road , they plea bargain , that will open the door for a civil suit and you can take them for a bundle as well. so dont look down on pleas too much,they do have a purpose.
