I love grand jury time. It’s like Christmas. I get to the courthouse early and start bugging the clerks. Are they done yet? Are the indictments in? Are they, huh?

They never are. Little kids who start bugging their parents at 3 a.m. on Christmas morning are always told to wait, too. But it’s worth it. When the grand jury does its thing, the result is a list of names and a whole slew of criminal charges to be examined. I get copies of each indictment clumped together in a fat, yellow envelope. They should really put a bow on it for me but they don’t.

You never know who will be in those indictments or what hot news will scream from the pages. I always check first to see if my name is listed. If I’ve been spared for another month, I’ll proceed to read through the entire list. So-and-so charged with this. What’s-her-name charged with multiple counts of that. Predictable names here, shocking additions there.

The grand jury is a secretive entity. It meets in a giant room with only prosecutors and their witnesses allowed to join them. No defense lawyers, no press. Just the jurors, the district attorney and his minions, and a whole lot of facts to wade through.

I always picture the jurors as stone-faced men and women with arms folded stubbornly across their chests. They frown and glare and challenge the prosecutors to give it their best.

The prosecutors I imagine as sweaty and rumpled, with shirt-sleeves rolled to the elbows and damp handkerchiefs with which to wipe their foreheads. They are here to convince this panel of everyday Janes and Joes that they do indeed have strong cases to take to trial. They have to go through them one by one.

“Now looky here, people,” the prosecutor begins. “This fella did this and he did that. This here is what we have on the sorry son of a gun. Now, won’t you let us drag his sorry butt into court?”

The grand jury, stone-faced or not, almost always forks over an indictment. If they decide the prosecutors have squat for evidence, they will “no bill” the case. In essence, that is the grand jury telling the county or state that it has diddly for a case. It rarely happens.

For the most part, the people who are named in indictments already know they are in trouble. They have either been arrested or the cops have been sniffing around. But there are those who have no idea they are even being investigated. Until the grand jury hears the case, there were no criminal moves against them.

Imagine the suspects’ surprise when they learn a panel of strangers has slapped them with charges. Some of these suspects find this out the hard way.

I remember one case very well. A man was accused of taking a young girl into his home and essentially using her as a sex slave. He played sexual games with her. He made her sleep with him and they showered together. The police got wind of it and they began investigating. They took their findings to the grand jury, which sat, rose and handed up an indictment.

I called the suspect while the indictment was still warm. I asked him what he thought about the five counts of gross sexual assault filed against him. There was a long silence. Then there was fear and blubbering.

“I had no idea,” he said in a voice that trembled. “Am I going to jail because of this?”

He did go to jail, but only for three years. The grand jury, as wise as it is, has no say in the penalty phase of a case. Its job is long over by the time the wheeling and dealing of plea arrangements begins. After all, these are common folk for the most part. Doctors, plumbers, shoe salesmen, homemakers, watch repairmen and librarians. Men and women who live next door to us but who are endowed with fate-sealing powers.

Mark LaFlamme is the Sun Journal crime reporter.