this post was submitted on 21 Aug 2026
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There is zero information on why they didn't indict, so I'm not celebrating until we find out why.
It is a grand jury. That is the practice round for a trial. The prosecutor goes over the evidence and explains what argument they are going to make in court without the defendent or their lawyer present to argue against it. The role of a grand jury is to pump the prosecutor up and say "You got this. I would totally believe you if I was on a real jury."
The fact that in this case, the grand jury said "That is stupid. You have no argument. Just let the guy walk," means that either the prosecutor is an incompetent idiot who did not understand what evidence he was presenting or the jury thought that no crime had been committed.
It could be that the software isn't accurate enough to be evidence on its own. Similar to how identifying someone in a lineup is notoriously inaccurate. They may be able to use it for probably cause in a search warrant, but without other supporting evidence, they may not have a case.
The article mentions felony charges - it could also or instead be that it was too high a bar (pun intended) to indict when it should have been a misdemeanor vandalism charge.
Yeah this has been the case for grand juries I’ve been a part of. The DA is not interested in prosecution if the charges are misdemeanors only.