Thread title may be weird, but what I mean is this:
Suppose you have a trial in which both sides are accusing the other of a crime, and one of the two is going to be guilty - just a matter of who. Perhaps a case of self-defense where two people shoot each other and both claim self-defense, or a rape trial in which it’s indisputable that the two had sex but both claimed the other was the rapist.
In such cases, would both of them be simultaneously charged, and then both go to trial as plaintiffs and defendants at the same time?
That’s not how it works in a criminal trial. In a criminal trail, the “plaintiff” is the government. So it would be State of Columbia vs. Joe Smith and State of Columbia vs. Jane Thomas. Joe and Jane can be each other’s accusers, but the government’s lawyer runs the show and can decide whether to charge one or both.
If a person is the plaintiff, it’s a civil trial involving money or other actions, but nobody’s going to jail.
Also, either defendant can plead the fifth if asked to testify against the other. Otherwise, first trial to go the other defendant would have to testify to what might be his own criminal conduct, or perhaps commit perjury (or demand immunity for their testimony).
Plus, the defense in either trail will bring up the fact that the prosecution is claiming in another court that someone other than their defendant is the guilty party. Prosecution would have a hard time pursuing both cases at once. Maybe wait until one is over, and charge the other person based on that.
The only scenario I can think of might be mutual statutory rape, but I assume most laws don’t allow for that.
In criminal trials no, as pointed out by others, but in civil law actions it’s not unusual to have a so-called counterclaim, whereby the existing defendant responds to the action by bringing an action against the plaintiff.
In criminal cases, you will have what is sometimes known as a cross-complaint , where each person is a defendant and a complainant at the same time regarding the same incident. This can only occur with certain crimes - the only one I can think of is assault. For example, when the police show up two people have clearly been in a fight. Both have minor injuries ( cuts and bruises) and each clams self-defense, telling the police the other started it. The police are not going to decide who started it on the spot, so both get arrested. But they are separate cases , it won’t be one trial and it is possible for both to be guilty ( for example, if party A strikes party B , turns and walks away and party B then strikes party A from behind.)
Let’s keep rape and consent out of this thread, please. We’ve already had one thread completely derailed because of this recently. Let’s not have another.
Feel free to open a GD thread if you want to discuss this topic.
But again, it’s more a conspiracy of a sort, not a situation where the two defendants are adversarial. Neither party has an interest in ratting out the other, since it would add evidence confirming the charge against them. I’m thinking more a situation where the hooker says the John beat her up, and the John claims the hooker attacked and tried to rob him. (not unlike the dueling assaults concept). I guess the result will be things like what level of force was used, was it appropriate? No different than a one-sided assault trial.
Without getting into thread history repeating itself - if this is a criminal trial, the only question is whether a crime was committed by the person charged. Let’s say two guys got drunk and wanted to re-enact Fight Club until the knives came out - then each would have a separate trial, I presume, and again: If A wants to testify and stick it to B (like they did in the knife fight) then they either tell the truth and make the case against themselves easier, or they lie about their own innocence (perjury). Also presumably, if the prosecutor files a charge against both and in each charge claims that person was the instigator, then the trial for A will mention “but your honor, the prosecutor himself has claimed B was the instigator.” All the more incentive to get the evidence right. (You can be guilty of assault if your “self defense” goes beyond reasonable and necessary force)
Standard - IANAL - but then, aren’t both claims wrapped up together in one big happy trial?