Unsolicited Testimony

In the fall of 2024, I was summoned to serve on a grand jury. There is a significant difference between jury duty and grand jury service. When you’re called in for jury duty, you’re assigned to a single case — that’s known as a petit jury. A grand jury is a panel of peers tasked with reviewing felony cases to determine probable cause, not guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. If we true-billed a case, the defendant was indicted, and it went to trial. If we no-billed it, the case was over.

In the county of a major city, there are many felony cases. They ease you in — drugs, stolen cars, some murders. There are hundreds of cases per day, but the grand jury attorney moves through them quickly.

Then the harder cases begin: domestic violence, assault impeding breath, and finally, the worst — crimes against children.

I lost count of how many times I walked out of that building, unable to speak. Unable to process what people are capable of doing to each other. I had to remind myself every single day that not everyone is like this — that what we were seeing was the absolute worst of what human beings do to one another. I remember one woman describing how her boyfriend hit her so hard she wet her pants. I couldn’t hold back my tears.

The weight of it hit differently when it came time to review evidence and hear from witnesses — sometimes in shackles themselves. There’s a moment when it stops being a file and becomes real: the people in those videos were real. You are watching someone’s last moments. They were somebody’s child, somebody’s parent, sibling, or cousin.

I used to watch true crime shows with enthusiasm. Now that I’ve seen actual true crime, I don’t want to know anymore.