Can private prosecution be brought against anoymous identifying placeholder? In a civil case, the proper name of the defendant need not be known and it can simply be filed against &quot;the individual with this phone number&quot; and their identity possibly later subpoenaed from the phone company. But what about in a criminal prosecution, private or public?
canada The name of the accused must appear in the indictment or information. See R. v. Turmel, 2005 QCCA 6, interpreting Criminal Code, s. 581: Nowhere is it mentioned that the name of the accused must be included in each count: the fact that the name of the accused appears in the heading of the indictment is sufficient. Practically, this is one of the barriers to private prosecutions. Private individuals do not have the same investigatory resources and powers as government to allow them to identify people that they will charge.
Only in a civil case Yes, in a civil case, Alice generally can call Bob as a witness to take the stand. In many cases, this is done very early, locking in their testimony, before expert witnesses or other evidence by the plaintiff are presented to try and undermine the testimony. Alice may ask only questions that have relevance to the case. Let's take for example a dispute about a contract: Alice may ask Bob if he engaged in negotiations to form the contract, about the matter of the contract, if he signed the contract, or how he (or his employees) fulfilled (or not) the contract. Pretty much everything that pertains to the contract or the execution thereof. This does not extend to the settlement of the case or attempts thereof. Alice may not ask if Bob has an affair with Clarice unless that somehow is material to the contract at hand. Alice may not re-ask questions where an objection was sustained in the same way. However, Bob might not need to answer all questions (there are things that are banned from being asked), especially as Bob's attorney will object to questions. A few examples of competent questioning can be seen towards the end of My Cousin Vinnie, though this is a criminal trial. Never in a criminal trial In a criminal trial, not only can the prosecution not call Bob to the stand, he has to elect to go to the stand to even be questioned by the prosecution. That is because he can &quot;plead the 5th&quot;. There is a tiny exception for civil cases, where they can do so there too.
Privacy against publication of criminal convictions has been considered in the High Court in NT1 &amp; NT2 v Google LLC [2018] EWHC 799 (QB), if I may run the risk of posting a legal citation myself. But note that the claimaints there are anonymized, as often happens in criminal trials as well. In some cases, the court may give an injunction against disclosing names or details, and can hand down both a public and a private judgement, with the latter being a restricted document that does have the identifying details. So this question could only apply to mentions of criminal process where the accused is actually identified. (And I think just saying &quot;R v Smith&quot; is not enough - the posted or linked text would have to give some identifying detail about which Smith it is, the nature of the crime, etc.) I have no qualms at all about talking about NT1 and NT2. The claimants brought a case against Google for making available information about their long-spent convictions, including on GDPR grounds although it took place just before the implementation of GDPR in UK law. Dealing with that argument under the prior legislation, the judge found that of the various exemptions claimed by Google, the condition The information contained in the personal data has been made public as a result of steps deliberately taken by the data subject. (found in the Data Protection Act 1998, Schedule 3, paragraph 5, implementing the Data Protection Directive that preceded GDPR) applied, because of a longstanding principle for criminal conduct. The idea is that (paragraph 111): A person who deliberately conducts himself in a criminal fashion runs the risk of apprehension, prosecution, trial, conviction, and sentence. Publicity for what happens at a trial is the ordinary consequence of the open justice principle [...] The same must be true of the details of the offending, and other information disclosed in open court, including information about himself which a criminal reveals at a trial or in the course of an application. The core principles are the same as the carve-out from defamation law for the fair and accurate reporting of criminal proceedings (paras 44-49). That &quot;made public&quot; condition can now be found in a slightly different context in the Data Protection Act 2018, Schedule 1, Part 3, paragraph 32, which mirrors Article 9(2)(e) of the GDPR for the purpose of Article 10: This condition is met if the processing relates to personal data which is manifestly made public by the data subject. Since this is virtually the same condition of European provenance, in the same context of surrounding rules, I think the precedent is a good guide. For courts themselves, law reports, and journalism or scholarship, there are other specific grounds to rely on. Individual Stack Exchange posters are surely covered under the general exemption for posting on social media in a private capacity, GDPR 2(2)(c) as interpreted through its Recital 18. For the site itself, as in the case of NT1 and NT2, there could well be a legal claim made about the inclusion of criminal conviction information in a posted answer. (In general, such a post, being free text, could contain all sorts of defamatory statements or other objectionable content.) The court would have to look at the competing interests and the level of harm. NT1 was not successful but NT2 was. The example scenario, where we are talking about a very brief mention of a criminal case, cited because it illustrates a legal point rather than because there's anything relevant about the person mentioned, is quite far from the grounds complained of by NT2. For NT2, there was a newspaper article in which he was &quot;quite inappropriately, portrayed as one of a rogues' gallery of serious criminals&quot; (para 188), eight years after the end of his sentence, and it was this that he wanted removed from search results. In particular, the academic exemption (para 13) seems strong, in the same way that it would be for a publisher of legal academic content. The test of &quot;substantial public interest&quot; does not apply, because this exemption comes through paragraph 36 in the case of criminal convictions; it's enough to show a reasonable belief that publication would be in the public interest. Google was not able to rely on the &quot;journalism&quot; version of this exemption (again, under the prior law) because they are a totally generic search engine for all kinds of data and purposes (para 100 of the 2018 judgement). The public interest test, and the accompanying &quot;legitimate interest&quot; for the data controller, do not seem too difficult in this example.
Does a bail-jumper have any recourse from being apprehended with the help of illegally obtained information? No. The bail-jumper has no recourse from being apprehended with the help of illegally obtained information for reasons discussed at greater length below in response to another question posed which is somewhat broader. Say that a person is a bail-jumper, that is, someone who fails to appear in court after being let out on bail. If they are apprehended by a bail bondsman with the help of illegally obtained information, do they have any sort of recourse? The person apprehended has very little recourse. The relevant case law has held that an apprehension of a bail-jumper by a private sector bail bondsman or a private sector bounty hunter hired by a private sector bail bondsman, is not "state action" and hence not subject to the constitutional protections that apply to illegal conduct by law enforcement officers acting under color of state law. This is true even though bail bondsman attempting the apprehend a bail-jumper is given profoundly broad statutory authority to take actions that would otherwise be illegal for a private person to engage in when doing so, and even though the bail bondsman is, in substance, enforcing a direction of a court which is a governmental agency. Certainly, nothing equivalent to the exclusionary rule or Miranda or a lawsuit against the bail bondsman under Section 1983 for a violation of the bail-jumpers civil rights would be available. (Also, the exclusionary rule that applies to exclude evidence obtained illegally in violation of the 4th and/or 6th Amendments doesn't operate to prevent a criminal defendant detained by law enforcement from being detained on an outstanding warrant, even if the arrest is based upon illegally obtained information, although if law enforcement did it, the bail-jumper could bring a 1983 actions against the offending law enforcement officers subject to qualified immunity.) The bail-jumper would probably have a right to sue the company that disclosed the information illegally for breach of a privacy tort if this was done in a timely fashion. But, attorneys' fees can't be recovered in a case like that, the statute of limitations is typically short, and damages that could be awarded would normally not extend to any harm involving the criminal defendant's failure to be successful in bail-jumping. So, ordinarily the damages would be nominal at best. Likewise, there might be a claim against the bail bondsman for participation in a civil conspiracy with the company that provided the information to commit a privacy tort. But, this has all of the downsides associated with suing the company providing the information, and also, would pose an additional problem: it is quite likely that a suit against the bail bondsman by the bail-jumper for acts occurring while the bail-jumper is jumping bail is either contractually waived by the bail-jumper in a bail bond agreement with the bail bondsman that courts would uphold despite the fact that it arguably involves an intentional tort by the bail bondsman, or would be barred by a bail bondsman's immunity from liability created under an applicable state statute or the common law of that state created by judicial decisions. Furthermore, in some states, a suit like this by a bail-jumper against the bail bondsman and also against the company providing the information, would be barred under the equitable doctrine of "unclean hands" that bars someone who has engaged in illegal or improper conduct in connection with the claim for which relief is sought from utilizing the courts in connection with that set of facts. Realistically, probably the best legal strategy for criminal defendants who have obtained private bail bonds would be to bring a class action against the companies that provide the information and the bail bondsmen who have used it, ideally brought on behalf of criminal defendants who are not bail-jumpers as well as those who are bail-jumpers, seeking injunctive relief only to prohibit continuation of this practice prospectively, subject to contempt of court sanctions from the issuing court if the company or bail bondsman defendants did so.
They can still be sued - they just can’t be found liable For example, as an adjudicator, I have immunity for acts and omissions done in good faith as an adjudicator. A suit could be brought alleging lack of good faith and/or acting as other than an adjudicator. If these were proved (and barring corruption it’s a very high bar) the adjudicator would be liable. However, adjudicators are often joined with the claimant (usually the Respondent is the plaintiff) and the ANA (Authorised Nominating Authority - the organisation that appointed the adjudicator, who also have immunity) not so they can be held liable but so that they can be subpoenaed and forced to give evidence - if they aren’t parties to the suit they can refuse to do this. My standard response when this happens is to write to the court saying “I submit to the decision of the court save as to costs” meaning I am not going to contest anything unless you try to make me pay costs - which I don’t have immunity from.
The only way in which you could be &quot;incorrectly listed as a defendant&quot; is if somehow your name was typed in as a party (there would be a glaring gap, that no paragraph of the complaint says anything about you as a defendant). Assuming the situation is nothing so bizarre as a typo, you are a defendant. Whether or not you are liable in this case is a matter of fact and law, and the plaintiff's attorney has probably done due diligence in suing everybody imaginable. Perhaps the plaintiff lied to his attorney about material facts (read the complaint); or perhaps there is a credible legal theory under which you would be liable (read the complaint). Your attorney will take care of your problems, to the best of his ability. He may be able to persuade the plaintiff's attorney that they stand no realistic hope of winning and some chance of getting smacked for pointlessly involving you. If the plaintiff's attorney isn't persuaded by the argument, your attorney could submit the legal arguments as a motion to dismiss. If the judge is not persuaded (at this stage), you (your attorney) will have to counter the arguments presented at trial.
Anonymous/pseudonymous works are still copyrighted. See, for example, 17 U.S. Code § 302(c), which provides for the length of copyright for an anonymous or pseudonymous work - obviously, they wouldn't have such a clause if these works did not have copyright. And you don't need to register a copyright to have copyright. The copyright office has instructions on how to register an anonymous work. I'm not quite sure how that works; presumably you could keep the author secret, but I'm not sure if you can keep your registration secret. But even if you can somehow register while remaining anonymous, what if someone infringes your copyright? What are you going to do - sue them? You'll be listed as the plaintiff. Courts usually won't allow anonymous plaintiffs in lawsuits unless there is a very good reason. One thing you might try is creating a corporation to own the copyright. If you could somehow arrange the work to be a work-for-hire for the corporation, then only the corporation would appear in the copyright records. Then it's just a matter of making sure you aren't publicly linked with the corporation. You could probably get an attorney to help you with that.
It sounds like you've read about two party consent and public spaces. But while anyone can sue, it's winning a case that's relevant. "My client respects the applicant's beliefs, but choosing to express beliefs in such a way during a job interview indicated sufficiently questionable judgement that my client was unable to consider the applicant further for the advertised position." "It has also become apparent that the plaintiff was not acting in good faith in making an application for employment." Court finds for the defendant and orders the plaintiff to pay costs.