CLAYTON • There will be no announcement Sunday from the St. Louis County grand jury hearing the Michael Brown shooting case, sources have told the Post-Dispatch.

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The grand jury is to reconvene Monday. – A decision was widely expected this weekend, but the grand jury is still gathering information. Barricades went up outside the county Justice Center and county police headquarters in Clayton on Saturday in preparation for an eventual announcement.
Protesters have been preparing to take to the streets if Ferguson police Officer Darren Wilson is not charged in the fatal Aug. 9 shooting of Brown, 18, during a confrontation in a street beside an apartment complex. Police have been readying for increased protests, and Gov. Jay Nixon has called in the National Guard for extra protection of some locations.
SECRET BY LAW  – Whatever the grand jury decides, how its members arrived at their decision — and the votes for or against an indictment — will remain secret by law.


Agreement of nine of the 12 members is required to file a charge, but all the public gets to know is that there was — or was not — an indictment. Even St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Robert McCulloch won’t be privy to details about the deliberations, including the vote, in accordance with laws dating to America’s colonial era.
If there is an indictment, only that document will be revealed. But if there is not, McCulloch has said he will take the rare step of obtaining a court order to reveal virtually all the evidence that was considered. Judge Carolyn Whittington has agreed to grant the request, said Paul Fox, the court administrator.
If there is such a distribution, it might occur immediately. The names of some witnesses and graphic photos of the crime scene and autopsy are expected to be left out.
Once that evidence is part of the public record, anyone, including a grand juror, could comment on it. But a juror still could not reveal the vote or anything about their deliberations without facing a possible contempt-of-court charge, said Peter Joy, a law professor at Washington University.
McCulloch has been criticized for leaving the decision on charging Wilson to a grand jury instead of making it himself. Lawyers for the Brown’s family and others have decried the secrecy of the process.
But the decision to file charges, whether by a prosecutor or grand jury, is never a public process.  (read more)
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