282
Kennedy, J., concurring in judgment
The specific provisions of the Bill of Rights neither impose a standard for the initiation of a prosecution, see U. S. Const., Amdts. 5, 6, nor require a pretrial hearing to weigh evidence according to a given standard, see Gerstein v. Pugh, 420 U. S. 103, 119 (1975) ("[A] judicial hearing is not prerequisite to prosecution"); Costello v. United States, 350 U. S. 359, 363 (1956) ("An indictment returned by a legally constituted and unbiased grand jury, like an information drawn by the prosecutor, . . . is enough to call for trial of the charge on the merits. The Fifth Amendment requires nothing more") (footnote omitted). Instead, the Bill of Rights requires a grand jury indictment and a speedy trial where a petit jury can determine whether the charges are true. Amdts. 5, 6.
To be sure, we have held that a criminal rule or procedure that does not contravene one of the more specific guarantees of the Bill of Rights may nonetheless violate the Due Process Clause if it " 'offends some principle of justice so rooted in the traditions and conscience of our people as to be ranked as fundamental.' " Medina v. California, 505 U. S. 437, 445 (1992) (quoting Patterson v. New York, 432 U. S. 197, 202 (1977)). With respect to the initiation of charges, however, the specific guarantees contained in the Bill of Rights mirror the traditional requirements of the criminal process. The common law provided for a grand jury indictment and a speedy trial; it did not provide a specific evidentiary standard applicable to a pretrial hearing on the merits of the charges or subject to later review by the courts. See United States v. Williams, 504 U. S. 36, 51 (1992); Costello, supra, at 362-363; United States v. Reed, 27 F. Cas. 727, 738 (No. 16,134) (CC NDNY 1852) (Nelson, J.) ("No case has been cited, nor have we been able to find any, furnishing an authority for looking into and revising the judgment of the grand jury upon the evidence, for the purpose of determining whether or not the finding was founded upon sufficient proof").
Moreover, because the Constitution requires a speedy trial but no pretrial hearing on the sufficiency of the charges
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