Assume you’re in an argument with Person A. They pull out a gun and threaten you. The police get involved and take A’s gun, but don’t arrest them at the time. Do you have the right to know if that person is going to be charged? Does another person calling on your or A’s behalf?
Many prosecutor’s offices will notify you of their charging decision. I don’t think it’s a “right” per se. I’ve worked with quite of few crime victims. Typcially they’ll be told “it’s still under investigation,” or “we haven’t decided yet,” or “we have declined prosecution.” Last week we even got a letter from a prosecutor outlining their reasons for declining to prosecute.
Once a decision is made to charge, that’s public information. If you don’t see a charge after awhile, I guess you can assume their won’t be one. Depending on the jurisdictions, it can take a long time. Only the statue of limitations puts an end point on it.
You can monitor your local jail roster to see if they have been incarcerated, that will usually show the charges.
An example of my local county jail roster. Click on the name to see charges. Look on your own county web site, It is probably there.
You can monitor the court documents of scheduled and complete trials. You can monitor the records of state prisons. You have to poke around a bit to find out where to look. You can hire an attorney to follow and find this information for you. It is all out there if you know where to look, finding out where to look is up to you.
And the answer to the question, do you have a right to know?, is no. It is up to you to look for it, the court system doesn’t hide this information, but they also do not make it easy to follow because they are wary of getting sued. Being charged is not the same as being convicted. But all of this is public records.
In some places, you need to pay to get access to those records.
I would guess that it’s much easier to find out that someone has been charged than it is to find out that the prosecuting authorities have decided to charge them. Some time presumably elapses between the prosecutor’s decision that there is sufficient evidence, etc, so it is appropriate to proceed and the charge actually being laid. Since criminal proceedings are in principle conducted in public it is (mostly) going to be possible if not necessarily easy to find out that charges have been brought but, until that actually happens, it may be difficult or impossible to find out what the prosecutor’s intentions are.
IIRC don’t some jurisdictions have “victim’s rights” rules or guidelines.
I also see for example, that the murder victim’s family complains they were not notified if the perp was up for parole. I guess the question is, when are you officially a victim? When the crime is reported or when the person is charged or when they are convicted?
So the cops will obviously know if he’s been arrested, but not what the prosecutor is thinking?
Practice will vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, but a typical arrangement will be that police receive reports of crimes, investigate, collect evidence and then hand the case over to a prosecutor who reviews the evidence, forms a view as to whether a conviction is likely, considers whether there are other public interest factors that need to be weighed, and makes a decision about whether to prosecute.
In run-of-the-mill cases experienced police officers will probably be able to predict the prosecutor’s decision with a fair degree of reliability, but it’s unlikely that they will share this with victims, witnesses or interested members of the public, if only because they may be wrong.
Where? Online?
Every court house I’ve been to in various states had a public access computer. Just put in a name and it came up with every case on a particular person, criminal or civil. You can look at the file but if you want copies then it costs you. I’ve never been charged just to look in person.
NY online
In some cases such as the OP, would police ask the complainant if they were willing to swear out a complaint?
(I’m utterly ignorant of criminal law, and am uncertain why some offenses might require a complainant and others don’t.)
You have the right to ask. Getting an answer is another matter.
This. While someone may have been caught red handed and there is no doubt they actuality commited the crime, the prosecution may flip them and use them as a snitch. They don’t to publish that information and the victim may be left wondering wtf is going on, so they will be told that their perp is part of a larger investigation.
About a third if the states have adopted some various of Marsy’s Law, language which provides victims the right to know about charges and sentencing. https://www.marsyslaw.us/