Grand Juries

Archive Report

Wide Use of Grand Juries in 1970s

Grand Jury Role in Watergate and Agnew cases

The grand jury has been condemned as an arbitrary and capricious Star Chamber and lauded as a people's panel which seeks out truth while protecting ordinary citizens from overzealous prosecutors. Ignored and unnoticed for much of American history—“a hidden corner of American law”1—the system has come increasingly under scrutiny in recent years. In the early 1970s, grand juries were used extensively to investigate Black Panthers, Catholic leftists and antiwar militants. This year, they have heard evidence against such prominent former members of the Nixon administration as Spiro T. Agnew, John N. Mitchell, Maurice Stans, H.R. Haldeman and John D. Ehrlichman. Mitchell, Stans and Ehrlichman have been indicted and face trial while ...

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