One more try, Tom. "Sued" means a civil action has been brought. They haven't been "sued for indictment," because there's no such thing. They've simply been indicted or charged.

Indict = criminal charge.
Sue = civil claim.

And there is no such thing as a grand jury judge.

The fraternity after the party face severe penalties from the school's administration however no real official action was taken by the University because we were waiting to see is criminal charges were going to be brought up against the university. They were not allowed to wear their Greek letters they could not participate in Greek week however many of the brothers shaved their Greek letters in their hair. And they had other restrictions as well but I know for a fact on the finished book that over half of our campus is supporting both of the officials that have been charged I personally think that neither of them should be charged because they weren't there it was the fraternity's fault because they didn't go through the right channels that is required from the Greek councils.

FYI/General information on Grand Juries:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_jury
http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa-476es.html

In NJ:
http://www.judiciary.state.nj.us/rules/r3-6.htm

More than a passing interest for me as my girl-friend has been on a Federal Grand Jury for over 6 months now.

What about that old adage that a DA can get an indictment on a ham sandwich?

Okay, but I asked a judge about the difference and he said pretty much the same thing you did.

Suit is civil
Indictment is criminal

He basically said that an indictment is a suit of criminal intent of a crime. A grand jury is a panel where rights are thrown out. There must be a jury leader. Is this a judge?

Natalie,

Very well stated. It hard enough to find alumni and outsiders willing to do the work to help care for a fraternal chapter- and if these prosecutions are successful, then it will become even harder. In fact, the more coverage this situation gets- the more reluctance it will create no matter what the outcome.

Reading through the articles I get the sense of a prosecutor who cares more about sending a message and setting precedent than in dealing with the facts at hand. Mike Nifong reincarnated?

We do not know the facts at hand, but I think any reasonable person can agree that University officials could not have the direct ability to forsee the imminent danger of a specific occurrence of this kind of event and effectively prevent it except in extremely unusual circumstances of insight. An example of that might be a University official who was an alumnus of a chapter where such an event took place and had been present- and no evidence of any such circumstances has been presented to date.

This is going to sound very hard and cruel, but it is right time to say it.

Looking back at my chapter- I cannot remember a single pledge class where there was not at least one person who did not drink alcohol at all. And I cannot remember any events where pledges were physically forced to drink, or nagged into excess drinking.

I am sure it happens- but I have never seen any evidence to suggest it is an epidemic problem. I am still waiting for anyone to produce substantive evidence that drinking-related deaths among college students are convincingly disproportionately associated with membership in a Greek organization.

Now, houses where that kind of thing happens on a routine basis are going to naturally attract the kind of kids who want to drink heavily in the first place.

This is still a bad thing, but not in the sense that totally innocent youths are being corrupted- rather people with bad habits tend to congregrate.

Going back to my example about non-drinkers or infrequent drinkers, there were voluntarily sober people at every Greek party I ever attended. It is not that hard to say no if you really don't want to drink, or if you don't want to drink irresponsibly.

And so I find it hard to believe that a fraternity can systematically corrupt youths so quickly. That assumes that at 18, the average young man is weak-minded and not much of a man.

Perhaps this young man's parents should reflect on what example they might have set and how their childrearing choices might have contributed to this.

Maybe they are not to blame at all. Maybe this was an isolated incident.

But just think for a second about the fact this young man made a very bad choice.

Does it make more sense the conditioning for that bad choice came from a few months of fraternity membership or nearly 18 years of parenting?

Consider also how many of us have imbibed incredible amounts of liquor a time or two in college. I sure did- I remember those 2 incidents well (or rather the 2 day hangover that followed.)

In the grand scheme of things, this unfortunate young man paid the hardest price for something a great many of us have done a time or two.

That is a tragedy- but it is no excuse for this kind of criminal prosecution.

I do not see a search for justice here. I see a deliberate attempt to wipe out Greek Life by making it impossible for it to exist.

Natalie, it is a worthwhile concept to have well compensated individuals living in and running Greek houses- but it is not financially practical.

And as many fraternities have learned the hard way, when you have a dry or strictly managed house that is populated with members who are not prone to making good choices about conducting themselves- a few guys/girls in the chapter renting a house nearby will soon be host to a completely unsupervised environment where the drinking and other things will take place anyway.

It will be interesting to see how this unfolds, but unless some extraordinary circumstances emerge regarding the University officials and direct knowledge of events in this particular chapter- I don't see this prosecution succeeding in the long run (meaning in the appeals process if there is a conviction.)

Tom;
Please take the time to read the links in my earlier posting.

As I said, "I recognize as well as anyone that grand juries make mistakes and that DAs may not present cases based in fact to grand juries." Most DAs I have run across, however, would never try to get an indictment on a ham sandwich.

Of course, I've never practiced law in New York, where the ham sandwich quip, first uttered by a subsequently disbarred judge, originated. ;)

I really have no clue what you mean when you say "a grand jury is a panel where rights are thrown out." It is not a grand jury's role to hear all of the evidence in a case or to decide guilt -- that responsibility belongs to the petit jury (the jury that actually hears a trial). The grand jury's role is simply to decide if the prosecutor has enough evidence to proceed with an indictment. If it determines that he does, then the purpose of the trial is to see how that evidence stacks up against other evidence and holds up to challenge.

Judges do not sit with grand juries, although they may occasionally be called in to rule on certain questions of things like privilege. As with petit juries, grand juries have foremen. In my jurisdiction, at least, the foreman is appointed by a judge.

I know it is against all "net" protocal to quote oneself but it ready seems as if the person(s) who should read these just are not.:(

While we all can do IMHO or IIRC, might be nice to see something a bit more based on fact.

But of course, that is just MVHO:D;):)

While doing an unrelated search, found this news update:
AP NewsBreak: Rider administrators warned about hazing?

By CHRIS NEWMARKER,
AP
Posted: 2008-06-04 14:42:50
TRENTON, N.J. (AP) - The parents of a dead Rider University student are now claiming that school administrators were personally warned about dangerous hazing at a fraternity chapter blamed for their son's death last year.

Lawyers for Gary DeVercelly Jr.'s parents filed a motion last week to expand their lawsuit against the university to include two school administrators, Ada Badgley and Cassie Iacovelli.

The lawyers say the administrators were told of excessive drinking during pledge season but did nothing to stop it at the on-campus Phi Kappa Tau house........
http://news.aol.com/story/_a/ap-news...04144209990042

First, not to diminish this young man's death in any way, but the parents need to recognize that their child made a foolish decision. Perhaps they should have been more aware of what their child was doing as an adult on campus. Second, "during pledge season"? Am I wrong or did this occur after the students had been initiated?

Restricting alcohol on school grounds is great, but it really only serves to protect the administration from ridiculous lawsuits like this one. Students will drink regardless, on any campus. Anyway, isn't Rider a private school? If so, parents have much more access to the admininstrators AND the students than they might at a state school.