Indicted by a Grand Jury

indicted by a grand jury in KentuckyA man died from multiple gunshot wounds in July.  The alleged shooter was indicted by a Grand Jury for the murder.  Interestingly, the defendant was also connected to a 2018 murder and robbery.

Now, before you get angry because this man was back on the streets, there are many potential factors that may have gone into it.  Let me begin with something I’ve written many times before:

In court, it’s not about what they think.  It’s about what they can prove.

In our criminal justice system, we have Constitutionally protected rights.  An individual is not actually found “innocent” by the court.  That person is found “not guilty.”  This is a key fact people often forget or never learned.

As a Kentucky criminal defense attorney, one of my most important obligations is to make sure the police, detectives, prosecutors and others adhere strictly to the laws and rules by which they are bound.  There are no cut corners.  There is no room for the skipping of steps.  The law and those who prosecute it must be held to a high standard, so that individuals are not railroaded, not falsely accused or convicted, not made to serve prison time for crimes the prosecution couldn’t actually prove were committed by the defendant.

How important would you view the above statements if you were arrested and charged with a crime you didn’t commit?  I think you’d take them pretty seriously.

In this situation, the defendant is charged with complicity to commit murder.  The prosecutors must have had enough evidence to result in the defendant being indicted by a Grand Jury.

It’s interesting that the charge isn’t murder or manslaughter.  It’s complicity to commit murder.  This means the defendant helped, assisted in or encouraged the commission of the act.  You may have heard the terms aiding and abetting.  This does however, include the recognition of intent – which is a key element in charging someone with murder.