The FBI has joined an investigation into a barrage of threats against Fulton County officials in recent days, including members of the Atlanta-area grand jury that voted to indict former president Donald Trump and 18 of his allies in a sweeping criminal case focused on alleged 2020 election interference.

  • mr_robot@lemmy.world
    17·
    1 year ago

    Under Georgia law, names of grand jurors are publicly listed on indictments — an effort at transparency that some have questioned in light of ongoing threats in the aftermath of the charges against Trump and 18 others accused of conspiring to overturn Georgia’s 2020 presidential election results.

    To a layman, publishing the identities of grand jury members involved in high profile cases seems incredibly stupid. Average people called to perform a civic duty are put in harms way for …better transparency?

    Anyone care to play devil’s advocate and explain why grand juror identities are publicly relevant information? Why does this law exist?

    • LastYearsPumpkin@feddit.ch
      12·
      1 year ago

      Same reason that we publish the names of people arrested for crimes before they’re convicted.

      It’s not about one specific case, it’s the fact that our justice is done out in the open so we can’t just make people disappear and have no paper trail showing what happened.

      If we didn’t have a trail of documents somewhere that can be inspected to show exactly how a person ended up in jail, then we could just lock them up and say “trust us, we did everything right.”

      Sure, in some situations (especially arresting innocent people, where just the record of the arrest can ruin their lives) it sucks, but if it was all done in secret, it would suck so much more for many more people.