The intervention of a grand jury is also often the necessary
cause of a delay alike prejudicial to the State and to the
prisoner. It can only be called in when a court is in session,
by which it can be instructed as to its duties and to which it is
to report its doings. Months often elapse in every year when no
such court is in session. For this reason, in case of a poor man
under arrest on a charge of crime, who cannot furnish bail, it
would often be much better for him were his liability to be
brought to trial to be settled promptly by a single examining
magistrate. At the hearing in that case also he has a right to
be present and to be heard. Before a grand jury he has no such
right.

In most States, the great majority of indictments are against
those who have already been committed on a magistrate's warrant
to answer to the charge, should an indictment be found. The
accused thus has two chances of escape before he can be put on
trial for the charge against him: one by a discharge ordered by
the committing magistrate, and one by the refusal of the grand
jury to return "a true bill." A grand jury is more apt to throw
out a charge as groundless than a single magistrate. He feels
the full weight of undivided responsibility. If he err by
discharging the prisoner, he knows that it may let a guilty man
go free, untried. If he err by committing him for trial, he
knows that, if innocent, the jury are quite sure to acquit him.
He acts also in public. The whole community knows or may know
the proofs before him, and will hold him to account accordingly.
On the other hand, in the grand jury room all is secret. The
prosecuting attorney, if admitted, does not remain while the