What Is a Prosecutor in Law Terms

See the full definition of prosecutor in the dictionary English Language Learners A prosecutor is a position in the People`s Republic of China, analogous to detective and prosecutor. Legally, they are bound by the Procuratorate Law of the People`s Republic of China. According to article 6, the functions and duties of prosecutors are as follows: In Brazil, the main task of the Public Prosecutor`s Office is to promote justice, as such, it has the duty not only to hear criminal cases, but if it is convinced of the innocence of an accused during the trial, to ask the judge to acquit him. The Public Prosecutor`s Office always has the final say on whether or not to charge crimes, except in the rare cases where Brazilian law allows for private prosecutions. In such cases, the prosecutor acts as custos legis and is responsible for ensuring that justice is effectively administered. In Canada, prosecutors are called Crown attorneys or Crown attorneys in most provinces. They are usually appointed by the provincial attorney general. In Belgium, the Prosecutor General of the King (King`s Prosecutor/Konings Prosecutor in the main courts and Prosecutor General/Prosecutor General in the courts of appeal) is assisted by subordinate prosecutors (substitutes/substitutes). They open investigations and can detain a suspect for up to 48 hours. If necessary, a public prosecutor requests that an investigating judge (onderzoeksrechter) be appointed to conduct a judicial investigation. With a judge investigating, Crown prosecutors do not conduct the interrogations, but simply outline the extent of the crimes that the judge and law enforcement agencies are investigating (the referral).

Like defence counsel, Crown prosecutors may request or propose further investigations. The Attorney General of the Crown is responsible for policy decisions and can prioritize cases and procedures as required. Prosecutor, a government official responsible for bringing defendants in criminal cases to justice on behalf of the State. Although jurisdiction varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, many prosecutors are responsible for all stages of criminal proceedings, from police investigations to proceedings and all courts of appeal. Many also defend the state in civil lawsuits. In the United Kingdom, prosecutions are brought on behalf of the Crown. In this sense, it can be said that the crown is persecuted and that the charge is often referred to as “the crown”. At the state level, careers are generally divided between prosecutors (promotores de Justiça), who work before the lower courts, and prosecutors (procuradores de Justiça), who work before the state courts of appeal.

There are also military prosecutors whose careers, although associated with federal prosecutors, are divided in the same way as prosecutors. Prosecutors are considered judges under French law, as in most civil law countries. While both the defence and the complainant are represented by ordinary lawyers sitting (on chairs) on the courtroom floor, the prosecutor, like the judge, sits on a platform even though he or she is not attending the deliberations. Judges and prosecutors are trained in the same school and see themselves as colleagues. In Japan, prosecutors (検察官, kensatsu-kan) are career officials with considerable powers to investigate, prosecute, supervise the enforcement of sentences, etc. Prosecutors may instruct police for investigative purposes and sometimes investigate directly. Only prosecutors can prosecute offenders in principle, and prosecutors can decide whether or not to prosecute them. Senior officials in the Department of Justice are mostly prosecutors. Prosecutors are allowed to act in each other`s shoes during their careers, but a recent ruling by Italy`s Constitutional Court states that prosecutors who want to become judges must move to another region and are prohibited from listening to or listening to trials they themselves initiated. If the accused does not want to plead guilty, the prosecutor usually has to defend the legality of the indictment at different stages before trial. In crimes, the prosecutor may be required by law to obtain permission from a grand jury before he can prosecute the accused.

A grand jury is a panel of people who can deny prosecution for lack of evidence. If the grand jury returns a non-bill, the defendant will not be charged and the case against the defendant must be dropped. If the grand jury returns a genuine invoice, the defendant will be charged and the prosecution can continue. The primacy of the prosecutor was enshrined in the 1820s, when the American public began to push for the introduction of democracy into the criminal justice process. States began to allow the election of judges, and laws allowing for the election of a prosecutor followed soon after. In 1832, Mississippi became the first state to include a provision in its constitution requiring the election of local lawyers. Every state that joined the Union after 1850 provided for the election or employment of prosecutors, and the position is now deeply rooted in the federal and state criminal justice systems. In Brazil, prosecutors form a body of autonomous officials – the Brazilian Public Prosecutor`s Office (Ministério Público) – who operate at both the federal and state levels.

A prosecutor is an office used in socialist judicial systems that is somewhat similar to that of a prosecutor in other legal systems, but has broader responsibilities, such as handling investigations otherwise conducted by police branches. Conversely, the police systems of socialist countries, such as the militia of the Soviet Union, were not designed to play the same roles as the police forces of democratic countries. In a TV crime thriller or in real courts, the prosecutor is the person who files criminal charges against a suspect. Thesaurus: All synonyms and antonyms for Prosecutor There are two remarkable limits to the prosecutor`s discretion in law enforcement. First, a prosecutor cannot base a prosecution on “such an unjustifiable standard as race, religion, or other arbitrary classification” (Oyler v. Boles, 368 U.S. 448, 82 pp. Ct. 501, 7 L. Ed. 2d 446 [1962]).

For example, a prosecutor cannot selectively prosecute only Chinese who violate laundry laws (yick wo v. Hopkins, 118 U.S. 356, 6 S. Ct. 1064, 30 L. Ed. 220 [1886]). In some countries, the prosecutor takes over the investigation as soon as an offence has been committed. In both the United States and Russia, the prosecutor is largely responsible for police investigations, in which he must ensure that the guaranteed rights of the accused are protected.

In England, most prosecutions are conducted by the police on the basis of complaints to them; The most serious crimes, such as murder, are prosecuted by a judicial official. The English procedure does not centralise all prosecutions in a single official or body and is therefore different from the system used in Scotland and continental European countries, as well as from the American system. Theoretically, the job of a prosecutor is not to convict and imprison as many people as possible. The fundamental function of a prosecutor is to seek the truth about criminal acts. Thus, if a prosecutor discovers evidence that calls into question the guilt of the defendant or absolves him of criminal responsibility, he must turn that evidence over to the accused. If a prosecutor has no evidence of an accused`s guilt, he or she must drop the charge or deny the charges. In practice, prosecutors believe that they are judged by the court of public opinion according to the number of convictions they receive. In early English history, victims of crime and their families had the right to hire a private lawyer to lay criminal charges against the person who allegedly injured the victim. [28] In the 18th century, the prosecution of almost all crimes in England was private, mainly by the victim. [29] In colonial America, officials dominated the prosecution of crimes due to Dutch (and possibly French) practice and the expansion of the Attorney General`s Office. However, privately funded prosecutors were an important part of the state`s criminal justice system during the nineteenth century.

[30] The use of a private plaintiff has been incorporated into the common law of Virginia, but is no longer permitted. [28] Until 1975, private prosecutors were employed in North Carolina. [31] In Nigeria, private prosecutions were used, but this practice ceased. [32] In New Zealand, most crimes are prosecuted by a police prosecutor, an employee of the New Zealand Police Force. The most serious crimes – about 5% of all crimes – are assigned to a lawyer who works in a private law firm known as a Crown prosecutor. [3] Second, a prosecutor cannot vindictively lay charges because a defendant exercised a constitutionally protected right (Blackledge v. Perry, 417 U.S. 21, 94 p.

Ct. 2098, 40 L. Ed. 2d 628 [1974]). For example, suppose a defendant is convicted by a court, but the conviction is overturned on appeal. If the prosecutor tries to bring the accused back to trial, he cannot charge him without further evidence on charges more serious than those brought against him in the first trial. A prosecutor may threaten a defendant with a more serious charge if the defendant refuses to plead guilty to a less serious criminal charge, but only if he has evidence of the more serious charge (Bordenkircher v. Hayes, 434 U.S. 357, 98 pp. Ct. 663, 54 L.

Ed. 2d 604 [1978]). In any case, a prosecutor does not decide whether or not to convict an accused. This decision is made by the investigator: either the judge in a court case or the jury in a jury trial.