Why would a police force hold off on charging someone? Can they do this? Person A commits an offence on January 1st. The police force have everything they need to charge person A within a few days. Assuming there is no more evidence they can possibly obtain, would they hold off on pressing charges? say, for three or more years. Surely they would want to move forward as soon as possible? since memories, data and other evidence may degrade (service providers are only bound to keep message records for 12 months ). I have never heard of this happening, it seems like as soon as they have enough to charge they go right ahead. This seems the correct course of action in terms of the alleged victims of the crime "getting it over and done with". This is fundamentally different to someone holding off from pressing charges (i.e the many victims of Jimmy Savile). Examples Hate Crime: I can not think why there would be delays on a Hate Crime charge. Once there is sufficient evidence to lay charges in this case, then why would a police force hold off on charging? Same confusion holds with offences such as harassment, distribution indecent images and plotting to commit a terrorist activity.
This isn't strictly a legal question, but there are many reasons that a police force might delay. These include, but are not limited to: The case is a low priority so resources are devoted elsewhere, and no one ever gets back around to dealing with it. The case may implicate another ongoing undercover operation which the arrest would disrupt. It is likely that if the police wait that they will be able to bring much more serious charges, when the conduct they have evidence for is not as serious if they wait and monitor the suspect for future criminal conduct or leads to more serious past conduct. For example, the police may only have evidence of a single incident of harassment but may think that if they wait and watch that they may get evidence of extortion or attempted murder. There is a concern that prosecuting immediately would lead to community uproar that would undermine community safety or impair police operations generally. In the same vein, public opinion might produce a tainted or unfavorable jury if charges were pressed now, but the jury might be less likely to have pre-existing opinions or to consider the case a hot button issue once publicity around an incident has died off. The police may intentionally be exercising discretion not to press charges because it seems unjust to do so, or the perpetrator had some justification, or otherwise deserves a second chance. Pre-charge negotiations might be ongoing between prosecutors and defense counsel. The perpetrator already faces more serious charges that are highly likely to result in his incarceration and the new charges would be served concurrently and not add to his sentence, so pressing charges is not a priority. There are doubts about the sufficiency of the evidence or there is a belief that more evidence may be obtained soon (and nobody bothers to check back and try to press the case when that potential lead doesn't pan out). A modest delay in pressing charges for any number of reasons causes a witness to become unavailable or evidence to be lost. Generally speaking, law enforcement has wide discretion to decide which cases to focus on and try to have prosecuted, and which cases the leave be. No law enforcement agency has the resources to prosecute (with prosecuting attorney assistance) every possible case that they could prove.
Not all illegal things are crimes. Lack of evidence. They are asked to testify, and they say "what I said in my book was a lie". There is no general law against lying, except when under oath. Statute of limitations. Saying "10 years ago I did smoke drugs" means that any offence is no longer prosecutable. Lack of details. Which jurisdiction were they in? When did they commit the act, how many acts? You cannot be arrested for being a "bank robber" or a "murderer". You are charged with "robbing Bank X on 123 Fake Street the Thursday 25 April 2018" or "murdering Jim Thio in January 2017". Otherwise the defendant would have a hard time defending himself (how to prove that you have not killed anyone at any time?) All of the above combined with prosecutorial discretion in the form that any possible prosecutor will most likely determine that bringing charges would be just a waste of time and resources. UPDATE February 2018: Just for the sake of completeness, a reference to the situation of Jacques Cassandri, who did boast about a serious crime(a robbery in a Societe Generale vault in 1976) in a book. Unfortunately for him, he made some kind of mistake/miscalculation and the crime had not yet expired, so he has become an example of someone being prosecuted by confessing a crime in a book.
If the police or other authorities of Sri Lanka do not have witnesses or other evidences supporting that this American committed the crime, there is little that can be done. The police of Sri Lanka could ask the police of whatever locality the person is now in to interview the accused, which they might do as a favor, but are not obliged to do. If they do such an interview, the content would probably be sent to the Sri Lankan authorities. It might or might not be of help to them. If the Sri Lankan authorities can assemble some evidence, they could apply for extradition. That is a matter which depends on the existence of a treaty. According to 18 U.S. Code § 3181 there is an extradition treaty between the US and Sri Lanka, which became effective on Jan. 12, 2001. Extradition requests are normally subject to review by the courts and diplomatic authorities of the sending nation, that is the country that is requested to extradite a person. The request may be refused if there is not sufficient evidence, or if the charge is not a crime under the laws of the sending nation, or for other reasons specified in the law of the sending nation. In the hypothetical case in the question, the main issue would probable be whether there was sufficient evidence. If it were claimed that the accused could not get a fair trial in Sri Lanka, or would be likely to be subject to torture there, that could also be a reason for refusal. In the US this is handled under 18 USC 3184 This provides in relevant part that: If, on such hearing, [the judge or magistrate] deems the evidence sufficient to sustain the charge under the provisions of the proper treaty or convention, or under section 3181(b), he shall certify the same, together with a copy of all the testimony taken before him, to the Secretary of State, that a warrant may issue upon the requisition of the proper authorities of such foreign government, for the surrender of such person, according to the stipulations of the treaty or convention; and he shall issue his warrant for the commitment of the person so charged to the proper jail, there to remain until such surrender shall be made. I do not know the details of criminal procedure in Sri Lanka, so I don't know what, if anything, a court might do about such a case. In the US, a court would have nothing to do in such a matter until and unless the prosecutor was willing to present formal charges. Such charges would have to establish that there was probable cause to believe that a crime had been committed, and that the accused had comitted it, before a trial could be held. The Sri Lankan authorities could also request that a relevant US prosecutor file charges and try the accused in a US court. In some cases the US will try US nationals for offenses committed outside the US. But in the kind of case described in the question, this would not be usual. If Sri Lankan law permits, the authorities there could also try the accused in absentia. Many countries and many people regard this as fundamentally unfair, but it is sometimes done. In such a case, the person convicted in absentia could be arrested if s/he ever came within the jurisdiction of Sri Lanka. Aside from that, Sri Lanka cannot bring the person to court unless they apply for and get extradition, or the person travels to Sri Lanka again and is arrested there. As to the specific questions: if a good lawyer was stating the question above, what would their precise terms be? There are not very many specific terms to be used. The person said to have comitted the murder (or other crime) would probably be refereed to as &quot;the accused&quot; or possibly &quot;the alleged criminal&quot;. If there is a specific term for the particular crime in Sri Lankan law, it would be used. If it were a real case, details such as the time and place of the crime would be given. will this whole hypothetical situation fall under the case study of criminal law? I'm thinking international laws as well, but then I don't know for sure what international laws are, so there's that. Yes, this is an aspect of criminal law, albeit one that most lawyers in criminal law practice never have occasion to deal with. In a sense there is no such thing as &quot;international law&quot;, that is, law binding on countries. What is known as &quot;international law&quot; is the complex of treaties and agreements between various countries and the way in which they are given effect. Nations never have to enter into treaties, although there can be great pressure to do so. A nation can always denounce a treaty, although there may be consequences such as political or economic pressure, or in extreme cases, war. &quot;international law&quot; is also the accumulated precedents for how nations have interacted in the past over legal issues, but this is only binding in future cases to the extent that a given country's laws or courts treat it as binding, or that a current treaty makes it so.
"If it were not assize-time, I would not take such language from you." (said while grabbing the handle of sword) This is a famous conditional threat where the speaker/actor was not found to express intent to do harm; perhaps better called a negative condition. This probably confuses matters but if you are to search for more answers this could be a good place to start. One of the elements of common law assault is that the threat must be able to be carried out immediately; it must be imminent. I do not have a cite for this but I recall that this means that conditional threats are excluded from assault. So calling a politician on the phone and telling them that if they do not drop out of a race you will hurt them is not assault. So, "You cut that out now or you’ll go home in an ambulance" sounds a lot like, "stop or you will get hurt." The victim has the opportunity to avoid the danger; the threat is not imminent. But the facts here are interesting because the speaker touched the victim while speaking which might mean fear of imminent was real. But they were in a crowded room in front of cameras - could the victim really feel that threat was imminent? Plus, the "you will go home" implies a future harm. Oh, and the speaker does not say "I will hurt you," maybe she was actually trying to protect the victim from someone else's actions. Like when my teacher knew someone was waiting outside the classroom to fight me and she told me, "if you go out there you will get hurt!" I would hope that a jury would consider this hard bargaining.
Murder Which is the unlawful taking of a life with intent to do so. However, the doctrine of self-defence can make killing lawful: A person may use such force as is reasonable in the circumstances in the prevention of crime, or in effecting or assisting in the lawful arrest of offenders or suspected offenders or of persons unlawfully at large. if the prosecutor is of the opinion that the force used "is reasonable in the circumstances" they may not lay charges. If they do lay charges the judge may decide that there is no case to answer before going to trial if self-defence applies. If there is a trial this will probably be the strategy the defence employs and they may or may not be successful. If convicted the penalty is life imprisonment. Also, there is no UK law: there is the law of England and Wales, the law of Scotland and the law of Northern Ireland.
This is a deescalation tactic. By giving some ridiculous far out reason, the officer hopes to distract you from any combative or aggressive feelings you have about being stopped. You can do this too, if someone you think is getting progressively angrier might try and hurt you, bringing up something random forces their mind off their anger, even just for a moment. And sometimes, that's enough to avoid a conflict. As for the legality of telling you the reason, no they are not required to tell you the reason, as has been mentioned several times on stack exchange. If an officer says to himself, "I think this guy has crack on him because of X," and it's captured on his body cam, then he's covered. He can prove to the court that he did have reasonable suspicion to detain you, even if he later tells you, "I have a report of zombies in the area and I need to see your ID to determine if you have a death certificate."
Just below the section you quoted it says: (3) The victim’s prior sexual conduct is not a relevant issue in a prosecution under this section. There is no stated provision for the case you mention. I suspect that the law would apply. Whether the authorities would choose to prosecute in such a case is a very different question. There might be caselaw of this subject. I wouldn't know. If this is more than hypothetical, i would urge consulting a lawyer with local knowledge of criminal practice.
None No law requires police to keep people apart when making statements. Doing so is good police practice. In some police organizations internal regulations or procedures may specify that officers should do so. But those are not laws. In some cases witnesses may have had a chance to confer and agree on a story before police arrive, the police cannot prevent that. The trier of fact can take into account that witnesses had a chanc to agree on a false story.