Jack Smack is a drug dealer on Heroin Hill. One day, Jack gets involved in a classic “deal gone bad” - he was planning on making a big deal, but his business associates had the notion that it would be easier to just shoot Jack and take the drugs without paying him for them. He also happened to have $10,000 cash and an iPod on him, which was also stolen.
Now, let’s say no murder occurs but Jack and his partner are badly assaulted and/or shot in the course of events. His assailants are known to him, as he has dealt with them before. But instead of handling it classic drug dealer-style and shooting up their house in turn, he decides to get Justice involved.
Also, let’s assume Jack is at least relatively smart and removes any and all contraband from his property and (at least temporarily) discontinues all “services” while he pursues this. My question is - is his case, both legal and civil (a civil suit for damages of $10,000 + iPod. He doesn’t expect to get the drugs back), at all diminished by the circumstances surrounded by it? Even if he freely admits what he was planning on doing with the assailants? Would he be hit with some sort of “conspiracy to sell” charge in the process? Would he be able to get a conviction against the other party for assault w/ a deadly weapon, armed robbery, or the like?
There is nothing that I heard of that doesn’t allow justice for drug dealers and other criminals. When I was clerking for the DoJ, we had cases against several gangs where the violence charges were what we went after them for rather than the drug dealing (we never caught them with enough cash or product). I guess the same can be said with civil cases, but I don’t see juries to be too sympathetic.
Firstly, an individual person cannot press criminal charges. Only the state can bring criminal charges. The state can also decide if they want to prosecute at all – they are not obligated to pursue every crime they are aware of. If the Criminal Informant’s information is particularly valuable, he may be granted immunity on some specific charges.
It is not wise to bring this type of case in civil court. First, they will laugh at you long and hard , because the court will not enforce a contract to do a crime. Since the court will offer you no remedy, there’s no point in bringing the action.
What about the simple armed robbery part though? That’s what I’m also curious about. You see, in my hypothetical situation his contract is to sell the drugs, but in addition to taking the drugs they also take his cash and iPod, which he just happened to have on him. Could he get awarded that back?
In this scenario (like the OP), the drug dealer who got robbed is the victim. As it was stated correctly before, it is the DA (district attorney) who decides to pursue cases. Given the facts at hand, personally, I would go after the robbers. As for prosecuting the victim for his own act of drug dealing, I would prosecute that, too, but it would be much harder given the lack of any actual evidence to the crime of drug dealing (where is the product? Where is the money? Who did he sell to?) As I have said before, when I was clerking, I’ve seen the DoJ go after gangs where all they did was shoot up another gang. We had the surviving gang members testify and we didn’t charge them with anything.
As to your question that you posted after my response, if there still exists the prima facie case for any crime in questions, the DA has every right to go after the victim for that crime.