Under the Doom Law of Anglo Saxon King Aethelred of 980-1016, twelve landholders and one king's representative were appointed to serve as an accusing body to point out crimes which had come to their knowledge in the small jurisdictions in which they lived.

In 1066, William the Conqueror of England instituted the practice of selecting a group of sworn knights and neighbors to form a Jure Grande. The principal function of this body was to point out crimes and felonies which had come to their personal knowledge.

Later in the thirteenth century, grand juries were given authority to investigate and inquire into the maintenance of roads and bridges, defects in jails, and whether the legal rights and privileges of prisoners had been violated.

Meanwhile, in America the impanelment of the first Grand Jury occurred in the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1635. This body was entrusted and obligated to consider cases of murder, robbery and spousal abuse. By the middle of the eighteenth century, the Grand Jury was recognized for opposing the British Royalists.

These Colonial Grand Juries expressed their independence by refusing to indict leaders of the Stamp Act of 1765, and a Boston Grand Jury steadfastly refused to bring libel charges against the editors of the Boston Gazette in 1766.

By the end of the Colonial Period, the Grand Jury system had become an indispensable adjunct of government, with power to propose new laws; they protested against abuses in government, and wielded tremendous authority in their power to determine who should, or should not, face trial.