Can a jury award a defendant in a criminal trial money? Hypothetically, Adam is charged with a crime and stays in jail for a few months before going before a jury. The jury decides that not only is Adam innocent, but he's so obviously innocent that he never should have been charged in the first place. Can the jury compensate Adam for this? If not, can Adam be compensated at all?
In the US this is generally governed by state law: RCW 4.24.350 in Washington state. The criminal jury is not empowered to make such a decision, but a separate civil trial for malicious prosecution would be possible. Plaintif (ex defedant) would have to prove that the action was instituted with knowledge that the same was false, and unfounded, malicious and without probable cause in the filing of such action, or that the same was filed as a part of a conspiracy to misuse judicial process by filing an action known to be false and unfounded The basis for the lawsuit would be the objective facts that prove that the prosecution was false and malicious, and not the fact of acquittal or the subjective opinion of a juror.
You can only sue once on the same facts on the same defendant The issue here is res judicata - once a case between 2 parties has been resolved, that matter can never be litigated again. So Adam cannot split his litigation against Bill. Adam has suffered no damage from Charlie If Adam now had an artwork of reduced value as a result of Charlie’s negligence he would. But he doesn’t have a damaged art work so Charlie has caused Adam no harm.
Yes Usually, whoever got their hands on the defendant first would have first crack at it. The second jurisdiction would commonly not prosecute provided that justice was done in the first but they can - double jeopardy is not in play as a bar as they are different legal systems but courts usually apply the spirit that a person shouldn’t be punished twice for the same act.
A witness is not evidence, but what a witness says (their testimony) may be evidence. Or, the body of a person who happened to be a witness is evidence. I suspect that there is a translation problem. It is always physically possible to try pay a person to lie and AFAIK never legal: the person who lies and the person who induces the lie will be punished by law. The witness who testifies will have to swear that their testimony is the truth.
Short answer, yes, jurors will typically render a decision of guilt vs. innocence. This is pretty common in nations where the legal system is derived from British Common Law (about 2 billion people world wide live in a Common Law nation). The U.S. is unique in that it uses juries for Civil Trials as well as Criminal Trials. The right to a trial by jury is guaranteed in the U.S. Constitution in which the 6th amendment guarantees the right to trial by impartial jury (contrary to popular opinion, it is not a jury of peers, as this alludes to the Peerage systems, which the U.S. never adopted). That line is from the Magna Carta which was influential in the drafting of the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights. A jury usually consists of a panel of 12 people pulled from the locality of the crime, unless a change of venue has been granted because the alleged crime is so well known an impartial jury cannot be seated from the population. The jury will hear all the evidence from both sides, as well as opening and closing arguments. They will be provided &quot;jury instructions&quot; by the judge and must find if the evidence presented (The Facts) meet the criteria for a conviction of a charged crime (The Law). In all Jury Trials, a Jury fills the role of &quot;Trier of Fact&quot; while the Judge fills the role of &quot;Trier of Law.&quot; While the judge has the education background to understand what the law says constitutes a crime and how to find that law as well as how to make sure the defense and plaintiff/prosecution make fair arguments, any random group of 12 people can understand facts and put together whose story they believe, the defense's or the prosecution's. In the case of an innocent person being convicted due to inept defense, this does happen and is horrible, but there are recourses in the form of appeals courts, which can overturn a trial and order that a new one be held (a mistrial, essentially, the original trial never happened and the person is legally innocent. Try again and do it proper this time.) Ineffective assistance of counsel is a valid grounds for appeal of a conviction and does happen. In the other scenario, an inept prosecution, this does happen as well and it's not the fault of the jury that the guilty person went free, but for the prosecution. The prosecutor is at a disadvantage in every criminal case to balance out the fact that their office has more resources to bring to bear then most defendants. Among these handicaps is that their &quot;story&quot; about what happened must not have any &quot;plot holes&quot; in it (beyond a reasonable doubt evidentiary standard of proof) and that the prosecution has to convince 12 people that their story is the only way this could happen (try convincing 12 random people to agree to anything more complicated than &quot;the sky is blue and grass is green&quot;) and they only have one shot to do it (Double Jeopardy essentially bars the prosecutor's office from initiating the appeals process... and blocks someone who is declared innocent from doing it because why the hell would you want to?!). Here, the problem is that the Prosecutor doesn't have to charge the accused right away and has a bit of generous time to investigate (depends on statute of limitations on particular crimes) ... but the right to a speedy trial means that once charges are filed, the clock starts on how long the prosecution has to bring the case. Delay to long and the judge will give a directed verdict that the person is innocent because the prosecution wasn't ready. The importance of this fact that is a staple belief of Common Law is in the &quot;Blackstone Ratio&quot; which states: Better that 10 guilty people go free than a single innocent person suffers So the jury finding the prosecution inept is certainly the prosecutor's problem, not the jury's problem. It's a feature not a bug. If an innocent person does suffer, then we have a bug and we must see that it is corrected. As a final note, the jury also has the power of Jury Nullification of the Law. In the U.S. it's not really certain if Jury Nullification invalidates the law completely but in effect, it allows the Jury to declare a person innocent because, while they believe the prosecution's story that the defendant did what they were accused of, they don't believe this person should be convicted because they believe the crime they're accused of should have never been a crime in the first place.
In general, the perpetrator can be sued by anyone who suffered harm as a result of his actions. The fact that he's also being prosecuted criminally doesn't change that, nor does it matter whether or not the victim is a "celebrity". The perpetrator could, for instance, be sued by any or all of: the victim himself, for his pain and suffering and loss of earnings the victim's club, for the financial loss due to the player not playing the victim's medical insurer, for the cost of his care. However, even if any of these plaintiffs win their case and are awarded some huge sum of money, it doesn't help them if the perpetrator doesn't have the money. They can only actually collect what the perpetrator has, and possibly some fraction of his future earnings (which are not likely to be very much if he is in prison). So unless the perpetrator is quite wealthy, it's unlikely they would go to the trouble and expense of a lawsuit.
The jury isn't told what the law allows. They are told to come up with a number and if it exceeds what the law allows, the judge modifies it in response to post-judgment motions.
It is possible that someone is convicted. Destruction of evidence an constitute circumstantial evidence that a crime was committed, and other evidence, such as testimony, could pin the crime to one of the four possible suspects. A jury has broad discretion to assess the weight of the evidence.