indict a ham sandwich

动词 v.
英 /ɪnˈdaɪt‿ə ˌhæm ˈsændwɪt͡ʃ/    美 /ɪnˈdaɪt‿ə ˌhæm ˈsændwɪt͡ʃ/

英文释义

动词 v.
  1. Of a grand jury: to charge a person with a crime, despite a perceived lack of evidence. US,excessive,humorous,idiomatic,intransitive
    — Advocates of the grand jury say it is the only shield in the criminal justice system between police and prosecutors and the accused. […] But critics say the grand jury doesn't shield anybody because the prosecutor runs the show. "The district attorney could get a grand jury to indict a ham sandwich if he wanted to," one Rochester defense lawyer said.

词形变化

indicts a ham sandwich present,singular,third-person indicting a ham sandwich participle,present indicted a ham sandwich participle,past indicted a ham sandwich past

词源

Possibly alluding to ham sandwich (“something utterly commonplace, of modest value”). The term was popularized by the American jurist Sol Wachtler (born 1930) who used it in 1985 shortly after his appointment as Chief Judge of the New York Court of Appeals when expressing the view that the use of grand juries to bring indictments should be abolished: see the quotation from 1985.
0 次浏览 数据来源: Wiktionary