Reply #24: Fitz is not "keeping it open"

[yodermon]

It is NOT a special Grand Jury. It is a regular Grand Jury which can hear all kinds of evidence from any case.

from firedoglake (http://firedoglake.blogspot.com/2005/10/untying-few-legal-knots.html ) back on Thursday, October 27, 2005

Is this a Grand Jury or a Special Grand Jury? What is the difference?
After everyone working for weeks under the assumption that this was a special grand jury, based on media reports, yesterday's article in the WaPo revived that question for me. Since there has been no sourcing in any of the articles thus far, I decided to take matters into my own hands and called the Federal District Court Clerk's Office for the DC Circuit this morning. Amazing how such a little thing as the telephone can prove so useful, isn't it?

As it turns out, this is a regular old Grand Jury. The Clerk with whom I spoke told me that "no special Grand Jury is seated at this point" in the DC Circuit. (Am trying to not read into tea leaves that perhaps one could be seated shortly, and just take that as a no special grand jury at present, thanks.)

What this means in terms of the term of the grand jury is this: a regular grand jury has a normal term of 18 months. A special grand jury has a normal term of up to 36 months, if all extensions are requested.

More good firedoglake info on Grand Juries: http://firedoglake.blogspot.com/2005/10/inner-workings-of-grand-jury.html