The sheriff and deputies who shot at the strikers in the recent trouble at Hazleton have been indicted by the Grand Jury for murder, and must all be tried for this crime.
The Grand Jury is a body of men, generally twenty-four in number, whose duty it is to look into complaints of crimes that have been committed, and decide whether they are really serious enough to go to trial.
A trial by jury costs the people a great deal of money and time, and it would not be right to allow this money to be expended unless it was pretty sure that a crime had been committed, and that the accused person was in some way connected with it.
A man will sometimes accuse another of a crime for spite. If it were not for the Grand Jury the case would be brought before the judge, and it might take weeks for the accused man to prove his innocence. In the mean while he would have been branded by the world as a criminal.
With the Grand Jury such a state of affairs is impossible.
The Jury must first be convinced that the supposed crime has been committed, and then that the accused person is connected with it, before they find what is called a true bill, and allow the case to go to the courts.
In the Hazleton case the Grand Jury has decided that a crime was committed by the deputies in firing on strikers, and the sheriff and his posse will have to prove that their action was justifiable, or else suffer the penalty of their crime.