CPL § 190.65

Grand jury; when indictment is authorized

§ 190.65 Grand jury; when indictment is authorized.

1. Subject to the rules prescribing the kinds of offenses which may be charged in an indictment, a grand jury may indict a person for an offense when (a) the evidence before it is legally sufficient to establish that such person committed such offense provided, however, such evidence is not legally sufficient when corroboration that would be required, as a matter of law, to sustain a conviction for such offense is absent, and (b) competent and admissible evidence before it provides reasonable cause to believe that such person committed such offense.

2. The offense or offenses for which a grand jury may indict a person in any particular case are not limited to that or those which may have been designated, at the commencement of the grand jury proceeding, to be the subject of the inquiry; and even in a case submitted to it upon a court order, pursuant to the provisions of section 170.25, directing that a misdemeanor charge pending in a local criminal court be prosecuted by indictment, the grand jury may indict the defendant for a felony if the evidence so warrants.

3. Upon voting to indict a person, a grand jury must, through its foreman or acting foreman, file an indictment with the court by which it was impaneled.

Official sourcehttps://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/CPL/190.65

In plain English

1. A grand jury may indict when (a) the evidence is legally sufficient to establish the person committed the offense (with required corroboration present), AND (b) competent/admissible evidence gives reasonable cause to believe he committed it. ★ (Legally sufficient + reasonable cause.)

2. The grand jury is not limited to the offenses named at the start — and even on a misdemeanor sent up under § 170.25, it may indict for a felony if the evidence warrants.

3. On voting to indict, the grand jury, through its foreman, files the indictment with the impaneling court.

Marked in the text: penalties, time limits, sums of money. Editorial emphasis added by this edition; it does not appear in the statute as enacted.

In print

This provision appears in Volume 3 — The JG-22 Criminal Procedure Law and in Volume 1 — The JG-22 in Plain English.