Can police receive prison time for misconduct? Suppose that someone is a victim of police misconduct and the officer who was on duty at the time is eventually found guilty of police misconduct. Usually the victim walks out with award money (lawsuit or from suing an officer). Let's say the crime the officer committed was a felony or the victim isn't satisfied with the amount of money offered to them. Can they request that the alleged officer receive a (hefty) prison sentence rather than being awarded money of some kind? (Referring to U.S.)
There is no crime of "police misconduct" in the US, but murder or theft are certainly crimes which would qualify as "police misconduct". To take a real case, an officer in Georgia was convicted of aggravated assault, violating oath of office, and making a false statement (not murder, though he did kill the victim). In principle, he would also be liable in a lawsuit by the victim's family. However, these would be separate legal processes, the criminal prosecution being conducted by and at the discretion of the government prosecutor, and the monetary lawsuit being conducted by and at the discretion of the victim's family (on behalf of the victim). It is possible that an officer will be convicted yet not found civilly liable, or vice versa; or both, or neither. The victim (or family) doesn't necessarily have any connection to the criminal case, although they typically can testify during the sentencing phase. In some jurisdictions (e.g. California), the victim has a right to testify at a sentencing hearing. The result of a lawsuit can never be imprisonment – that has to come from criminal prosecution, and criminal prosecution does not result in a monetary reward to the victim (any criminal fine goes to the government).
More generally, but subject to the specifics of state law, a person may be required to assist a police officer. For instance in Alabama A person commits the crime of refusing to aid a peace officer if, upon command by a peace officer identified to him as such, he fails or refuses to aid such peace officer in: (1) Effecting or securing a lawful arrest; or (2) Preventing the commission by another person of any offense. In Washington, the obligations is much narrower: A person is guilty of refusing to summon aid for a peace officer if, upon request by a person he or she knows to be a peace officer, he or she unreasonably refuses or fails to summon aid for such peace officer. Washington seems to be in the minority, compared to Alabama.
A punishment is basically a harm to someone's person, liberty, dignity, or property imposed primarily for the purpose of harming someone, rather than to accomplish some non-punitive end such as apprehending a suspected criminal, securing compliance with a court order, exchanging truthful facts, or compensating someone for harm legally attributable to the person upon whom the act is imposed. If a police officer shoots and kills a person while they are in the process of committing a crime, that is not a punishment, because the officer is not trying to punish someone for committing the crime, but to prevent the crime from continuing and/or to apprehend the suspect. If the use of force is justified by a law authorizing it under the circumstances, then it is legal and there are no civil or criminal consequences. If the use of force is not justified by a law authorizing it under the circumstances it might be a crime, it might be a &quot;tort&quot; (i.e. a civil wrong for which you can sue someone, especially if it arises at common law), or it might be a civil rights violation. Law enforcement officers generally have broad absolute immunity from common law tort liability incurred the course of their duties in carrying out their jobs, and have &quot;qualified immunity&quot; from liability for civil rights violations which limits their liability to cases of intentional violations of clearly established constitutional rights. In a case arising from an excessive use of force against someone who is not in custody, generally speaking, the constitutional right violated is the 4th Amendment right to be free of unreasonable seizures and to be free from seizures that that are not supported by probable cause. Generally speaking, the law does not recognize an excessive use of force in connection with the criminal justice system as a &quot;taking&quot; for which there is a right to both due process and fair market value compensation (to somewhat oversimplify). Generally speaking, an 8th Amendment analysis involving the use of force (as opposed to taking of money or property in the criminal justice system which are subject to the excessive fines clause of the Bill of Rights), begins, and the 4th Amendment seizure analysis ends, when someone is in custody. A police officer who arrests someone and then beats them up or rapes them and then releases them, might be entering into 8th Amendment, rather than 4th Amendment territory, although the dividing lines are not always clear.
The General Rule In practice, the only time when self-defense against a police officer is legal is when you do not know and have no reasonable way that you could have known that the person attacking you is a police officer. (And arguably, a police officer acting in an official capacity in furtherance of his or her duties, rather than in a personal capacity as an individual.) For example, if the police do a no knock raid in the dark of night, and don't announce themselves, and you shoot police officers reasonably believing them to be home invasion burglars, you would not have criminal or civil liability for doing so. A similar valid self-defense claim might arise when someone has an objectively reasonable reason to think that someone claiming to be a police officer is really just a criminal impersonating a police officer, even if that belief is, in fact, mistaken. In almost all other circumstances, you need to submit to the officers, and you are pretty much required by law to bear the risk that excessive force by the officer will harm you. If you don't, you will probably be guilty of the crime of resisting arrest and will not be entitled to a self-defense defense. The fact that you are not actually guilty of a crime is irrelevant. This is often the case and police officers are not omniscient. If the officer lacked probable cause for an arrest (which there is often no way that the person being arrested or attacked can know at the time), the remedy is a civil rights suit after the fact, not self-defense. In theory, there might be other isolated circumstances where self-defense against a police officer is legal, but they involve fact patterns so quirky that they would almost never happen in real life, or would almost never be possible to prove in a manner that the courts would believe. Officer Liability For Harming Someone Legitimately Acting In Self Defense Whether the officers had civil liability to you if you were harmed by the officers while exercising your right to self-defense would depend upon their state of mind, even if you were rightfully using self-defense. For example, a U.S. Supreme Court case decided in January of 2017 (White v. Pauly) involved this fact pattern. In White v. Pauly an officer arrived late on the scene and had no reason to believe that the officers who arrived there before him and were being shot at by citizens in a house that they were approaching, lacked probable cause, or had not announced themselves. The court held that as a result, he had no civil liability to a citizen he shot, even if the person who the late arriving officer shot while that citizen was shooting back at the police officers on the scene was actually engaging in good faith self-defense. The citizen's self-defense in the case had a valid defense to criminal or civil liability for firing on the officers, because the citizen shooting back didn't actually know that the people approaching his house were police officers. But, because the late arriving officer reasonably believed under the circumstances that the citizen had no right to engage in self-defense, because he thought that the early arriving officers had probable cause and had announced themselves, the late arriving officer had no civil liability to the citizens he shot.
They are not given independence from statute. This clause just says that conviction is not the end goal of the prosecutor. If in light of the evidence, the prosecutor comes to believe a person is not guilty, they are not to proceed with the prosecution. They must not hide exculpatory or mitigating evidence in order to get a conviction.
Anyone found not guilty may apply to the judge to have his legal costs paid out of central funds; this is not automatic, but is usual if the court agrees that the charges should not have been brought. The amount payable is set out by regulations depending on where the case was heard; since October 2012 it has been set at legal aid rates, which are unlikely to cover a full defence team. Somebody who did not have a lawyer can charge for the time he himself spent on the case, but this is assessed at a standard rate similar to minimum wage, even if he happens to be an expensive lawyer. No compensation is payable for health or other problems incident on a criminal case; it is considered a part of the rule of law that charges will be brought against defendants, and that some of them will be found not guilty. It may, of course, be possible to sue the complainant for defamation or even to bring an action for malicious prosecution; a lawyer would have to advise on this, but the mere fact of acquittal is certainly not enough to found an action.
I will address only the legal issues. Prosecutors for very good public policy reasons are not required to prosecute every crime they have suspicions about. When exercising this discretion they consider: Is the act, in fact, criminal - many of the things you list, while reprehensible, unethical, and possibly immoral are not actually criminal. Do they have the resources (time, staff, money) to collect the evidence and run this case as opposed to the thousands of other crimes out there. There are always more crimes than can be prosecuted and these have to be prioritised in some way. Do they have enough evidence to gain a conviction beyond reasonable doubt. People can be fired or resign on suspicion, they can't be convicted on it.
There is no recourse The Pardon results in the pardoned person having no liability for the act, no matter if it was a crime or not, and no matter whether the pardon pre-dates a prosecution. There is no legal or political way to appeal a pardon. There isn't even a way to take back a pardon! As a result, the prosecutor or the next governor can do nothing.