A fair number of prosecutors take a larger view of this, and consider their primary duty is the safety of the community. So they consider whether dropping the charges and letting this guy go free would be good for their community.
And really, most of these defendants are far from ‘innocent’. There may not be sufficient evidence to convict on this specific charge, but they usually have an extensive record of preying on the community. Many of them are already on probation at the time of the crime.
If the primary duty of the prosecutor is the safety of the community, he will drop the charges so that the real culprit may be found, not left at large to commit more crimes.
There is also one other point, and I’ll have to depend on a lawyer to supply the proper term for the legal doctrine, but I believe it’s either mandated by law or firmly fixed legal custom that a prosecutor may not queue up a series of criminal charges’ resulting from the same basic act, and charge the accused with them one at a time until he finds one that “sticks” – he must be willing to prosecute all offenses from the same putatively criminal act at once, or not at all, barring specialized events like the victim dying of his injuries or new evidence demonstrating an additional offense not known to the prosecution at first. In other words, if Mike the Mobster breaks into the closed bank, threatens the lone banker at gunpoint, steals the money in the till, dynamites open the vault, takes more money and valuables from in there, drinks a half bottle of whiskey, and speeds off in his getaway car. you cannot first charge him with burglary, hold the trial, then hit him with armed robbery, try him for that, then book him for assault with a deadly weapon, then grand larceny, then illegal use of explosives, then driving while under the influence of alcohol – they need to all be counts in the same massive indictment, and crimes to be considered by the same jury.
This sounds like what O.J. Simpson went through. He was found not guilty of murdering his wife and the Goldman kid, but was sued by the Goldman family and was found liable for damages to the tune of over $30 million dollars.
Too bad for O.J. that I was not a juror in the civil trial. I would not have found him liable, because a criminal court earlier found him NOT GUILTY. Now, I understand that not guilty is not the same as innocence, but OJ was found not guilty.
I believe 1000% that OJ Simpson murdered those two people beyond a shodow of a doubt.
He’s a bastard in the first degree and karma has put his ass in prison after all. However, in the murder trial, OJ had a team of wonderful attorneys that ran circles around the prosecution and beat them down like Mike Tyson on an old lady. It also helped that the jury was mostly African American, who were on the side of Simpson over the cops. I think also that the jury was sick and tired of being sequestered in a hotel for weeks and months on end, away from their families, their bed, no sex, can’t watch TV, listen to the radio. They wanted to go home and they sent a messsage to the cops and the white establishment.
Even though I would have learned as a juror in the civil trial to disregard the murder trial unless directed not too, in the back of my mind, I am thinking about other people who might be in the same position, who were actually innocent, but are being sued by greiving relatives who are absolutely convinced that the person did such and so.
But the burden of proof was different. In the criminal case, the prosecutor had to prove him guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. In a civil law action, the plaintiff has to prove the defendant liable by the preponderance of the evidence. That’s quite a difference. BTW, in a case in equity, the burden is clear and convincing evidence.
If a prosecutor believes there is insufficient evidence to charge or maintain a charge should one have already been filed against a defendant, then they do not have a reasonable, good faith basis for prosecuting that defendant. Prosecutors have the highest ethical burden of any practicing attorneys for a very good reason - they act on behalf of the state. Merely believing that the defendant is guilty of something or is a dangerous or violent repeat offender whose incarceration would benefit all of society is far from good enough.
For instance, the California Rules of Professional Conduct states:
Any prosecutor who would charge or maintain charges against a defendant that they believe there is insufficient evidence against to even warrant charges either needs to request the case be re-assigned to a prosecutor who believes differently or should be fired and disciplined by their respective state bar.
There is no bar in England and Wales to a civil action being brought after a failed Criminal Action. However at Common Law a previous conviction was irrelevant and inadmissable as evidence at a subsequent civil trial; Hollington v F Hewthorn Ltd and Others (1943) K.B 587.
It has been modified now by section 11 of the Civil Evidence Act 1968, and it now depends on the facts of the case.
Incidentally a conviction by a foreign court will also allow a successful plea of autrefois aquit in England and Wales;* R v Turner * [1985] QB 604, *Tracey v DPP * [1971] AC 537.
In addition it should be pointed out that under autrefois aquit and convict
1)Where a lesser offence could have been charged or indicted, R v Connolly [1964] AC 1254.
Substantially the same facts
For offences that form part of the same transaction.
Autrefois Acquit is much wider than the rather limited protection that is double jeopardy.
In Canada there’s a “right to a speedy trial”. At one point several years ago, minor and not-so-minor cases were being tossed out of court based on a Canadian Supreme Court ruling that an unreasonable wait in coming to trial was a violation of civil rights.
I have trouble imagining a court letting a prosecutor hold off on laying more charges in an existing incident (or even unrelated ones that happened about the same time); with trial and everything, that would be 2 years or more of delay… and if the charges were laid, I guess the issue would be whether they would be combined into the same trial or not.
I seriously doubt if “We want to see if we got him the first time.” would be acceptable to the court as an excuse.
If they wait too long, the defense will argue that the evidence becomes “stale”. How good are eyewitnesses or memory when you ask someone to remember an incident 3 years ago?
Often, prosecutors will charge the suspects with all the possible charges, from the most serious one down to minor charges (thus bank robbery, robbery of an occupied premises, assault with a deadly weapon, terroristic threats, carrying a gun in a prohibited location, trespassing, etc.) This gives the jury (or Judge) the option of choosing a lesser charge if they don’t think the prosecutor had enough evidence for the higher charge. For example, the jury may decide that the evidence proved that the suspect committed the murder, but not that it was premeditated, so they find him guilty of second-degree murder rather than first-degree.
Other prosecutors may avoid this technique, feeling it leaves an opening that they don’t want. If they feel they have enough evidence, the prosecutor may charge only the most serious offense. Thus leaving the jury with the choice of either finding this guy guilty or letting him go free in their community.
(Actually, I think the Judge & jury have more options than that, but doing it that way the prosecutor is trying to get a conviction on the highest charge.
