True Bill Discovery

Last night I was doing research on the mechanics of a grand jury when I discovered a few interesting things.  The grand jury has been around since the good old days and was designed to keep the public involved with and aware of the court proceedings when the most serious crimes were committed.   These days perhaps because of the constant volume of violent crime, especially in large metropolitan areas, the grand jury has become regular simple formality, a rubber stamp of sorts in the judicial process. 

The second thing that I learned is that when the grand jury determines that there is enough evidence to indict the accused and send the case to State Superior Court, a written document called a true bill is created then made public.

The following definition of true bill is from Merriam-Webster.

true bill: a bill of indictment endorsed by a grand jury as warranting prosecution of the accused.
*The true bill was first used in 1766, before America officially existed.  


Another definition of true bill that I found at the Free Dictionary by Farlex(what ever the heck that is).


true bill: n. the written decision of a grand jury (signed by the grand jury foreperson) that it has heard sufficient evidence from the prosecution to believe that an accused person probably committed a crime and should be indicted.

Early Wednesday on my first stop to the Mecklenburg County Courthouse, I found out through the criminal clerk that the true bills from Monday's grand jury in the State vs. Antoine Dion Young were available to the public.  Within a few minutes I was handed copies of the three true bills that you see posted here below.   

Each one describes the indictment on three separate charges. By clicking the image it will become larger for easy reading. 

Please note that these are scans of the true bill copies and they appear exactly as they were when they were handed to me.  I made several other findings today, but hang in there because I am still researching and that means I will need until tomorrow to get confirmation of my analysis before I go to post.