The phrase "you can indict a ham sandwich" was said by Sol Wachtler, who was the Chief Judge of the New York Court of Appeals. He coined the term in a January 1985 interview to express the idea that prosecutors have so much influence over grand juries that they could get them to indict anything, even something as absurd as a ham sandwich. Wachtler used this phrase to criticize the grand jury system as being too easily influenced by prosecutors.
