Yes, private prosecution may only come into play where the police or prosecutors decline to lay charges or to prosecute.
What is “private prosecution?”
Really asking…is it legal or suggesting someone becomes a vigilante?
Just what it says: a prosecution brought by a private individual, who wishes to charge someone with a criminal offence and conduct the prosecution.
In Canada, criminal charges are begun by laying an information before a Justice of the Peace, alleging that So-and-So has committed a crime.
Informations are normally laid by peace officers, but it is possible for a private party to lay an information and begin criminal charges. They undertake to prosecute it in the courts.
That in fact is the historical origins of criminal charges in English common law, inherited by many Commonwealth countries. Before there were police or staff Crown prosecutors, criminal charges were brought by aggrieved individuals.
Private prosecutions are still permitted under the Criminal Code in Canada, but it is very rare that they are brought, and even rarer that they proceed. The Code gives the provincial Attorney General the power to take over a private prosecution, and in most cases the Crown prosecutor will stay the charge.
It is possible for the Crown to take one over and then take it to trial, as happened in the Zundel case mentioned upthread, but that is very rare.
All that did was waste the taxpayers money and annoy Zimmerman, He was acquitted
Yep, trials are costly (money, resources and time) and often a crapshoot. A suspect with not a lot of evidence against them can be found guilty if he is disliked by the jury and unsympathetic. OTOH, a sympathetic defendant may get the jury on their side, even against some solid evidence. It only takes one to “hang” a jury.
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It exists as law in the US.
The alleged cop killer was 18 when he was accused of the shooting. Yes the family has already filed a civil suit, & yes they went after the parents, too but how much does the average 18yo have to pay a civil verdict.
As for the DUI cop, if he’s well insured how much of that settlement will he pay vs. his insurance company(ies) pay? He’s already going to get walloped at renewal, if they renew him, for both the DUI & a hit-&-run on his record. How much more do premiums go up for a large civil settlement?
According to news reports, after he shot the cop, he stood over the downed officer & fired a couple of more times; so yeah, pretty heinous & premeditated on the latter shots. It’s a progressive DA who has done more to get people off of death row that his predecessors convicted than to actually charge anyone with the death penalty & no matter what your feeling on the death penalty is it’s many years/decades until they may be put to death (last execution in the state was 26 years ago) &, AIUI, being held on death row is harsher than being a lifer; less privileges like yard time, visitors, etc. so yes, the family has valid complaints that it wasn’t charged as fully as it could have been.
It will depend on the law in your state, but in many jurisdictions, collisions caused by impaired driving are not covered by your insurance. It’s a general principle of insurance law that you can’t insure yourself from your own criminal misconduct.
Will depend on the insurance law in your state, and whether DUI is considered criminal, triggering that principle.
You’re assuming that there will be a conviction on the capital charge in making that argument.
Also, it’s generally not the case that prosecutors charge the highest possible to get the most severe sentence, as @Aspenglow points out. They’re supposed to lay a charge based on what they think the evidence will support.
No, not more money. (But possibly less legal expenses in suing them.)
If the defendant has pled guilt to the charge, or even a lesser included offense, in a criminal case, that is a proven fact that can be used in a Civil lawsuit. Could make the civil case almost a slam-dunk.
If the defendant in a DWI vehicular homicide case makes a deal to plead guilty to only a DWI, it becomes fairly easy to prove his responsibility in the civil case.
That’s why defendants often try to get away with a “No Contest” plea – it satisfies the prosecutor, but screws over the victim’s family.
In the UK, the driver/owner’s insurance would still pay out for third-party damages, but not for the insured party’s damages or costs.
DUI or “Driving while impaired through alcohol or drugs” is a criminal offence here. Vehicle insurance is expensive anyway, but anyone with a DUI conviction is going to get screwed.
As someone posted above, the overwhelming majority of criminal cases are decided by a plea deal.
Yes. If someone was convicted a criminal act, they wouldn’t have to prove it again in a subsequent civil trial. But, sometimes the elements don’t line up and what they were convicted of wasn’t exactly what they need to prove in a civil case.
But, generally, it happens all the time. I’m thinking primarily of sexual assault case, but it could apply in other circumstances as well. For example, if a person is raped by a teacher and the teacher is convicted in a criminal trial or pleaded guilty, in a subsequent civil trial against the school district, the fact that the teacher did it would be considered “established.”
I know that; the question in the title / OP was what if the victim doesn’t agree with the plea deal the DA has worked out?
Generally, no recourse. As others have said, you can try to excert some political pressure. Some prosucutors have “victim advocates” on staff that might help. Some states have “Victims’ Bill of Rights” but I don’t think it give much in terms of “rights” to block a plea deal. Typically it gives a victim the right to be informed, and the right to speak at sentencing. Things like that.
Overwhelming majority of civil suits are resolved pre-trial as well; probably more than even criminal trials. They just call them ‘settlements’ instead of plea bargains.
The victim doesn’t really have standing in a criminal trial. Criminal trials are usually State v Perp. When my cat was killed by a loose dog, in violation of the leash laws, i had a lot of trouble persuading the prosecutor to take the case at all. (I’m not sure if that was strictly criminal, or a misdemeanor, but it was an action brought by the state. And it wasn’t just my cat, the dog had gone on a killing spree and killed about a dozen neighborhood cats.)
At the time, i was still angry, and was sad the dog wasn’t put down. But in retrospect, the ruling that the owners had to build a taller fence with a sturdier gate was a good one.
IIRC Sometimes the Victim’s family does get to speak out at the sentencing hearing. But neither the judge nor the prosecutor has to follow what they want.
This is true, but with the clarification that victims are always given an opportunity to give a victim impact statement at sentencing. At least in the courts where I worked. They didn’t have to, but they always could.
Once a defendant is convicted either by way of trial or plea, the case is referred to the probation department for a very detailed pre-sentence recommendation report (this is for felony cases only). The probation office does a deep dive into the defendant’s background, upbringing and criminal history. The report will include information from interviews with the victims . The probation department will then make recommendations for sentencing and include their bases for factors in mitigation and aggravation.
The judge is not bound by what the probation department recommends, but whatever sentence is chosen, the judge must state the factors in mitigation/aggravation on the record.
Judges will listen closely to the statements made by victims, but as often as not, they follow the recommendations made by the probation department, especially if the conviction was obtained by way of a plea agreement.
When Justice John Paul Stevens, who co-wrote the decision in Gregg v. Georgia (lifting the national moratorium on the death penalty), retired, he commented on the decision: he said he might have voted the other way if he’d known that other things were going to come into the mix, and specifically pointed to victim impact statements before sentencing.
Just saying.