Who has more power over the Police? RESUME When ranking the &quot;power&quot;(see footnote 1) over a community, the ordinary citizen will have the least power while the local police in the respectful community (street, city etc.) will have more legal power to do certain things (at an extent). Examples could be, breaking into a house (warrant), searching another persons car if there is ground for suspicion, walking with a firearm in public and allowed to use it to disarm a deadly force (generally speaking, for all countries and communities alike) etc. QUESTION: Are there any government forces (see footnote 2) which has more power over the local police? I know some certain countries combined with certain government structure like the Queen of England, has the &quot;supreme power&quot; which makes her (when looking at jurisdiction) &quot;invincible&quot;. I also know that some organisations like NATO makes their military have more power than some development countries. I accept answers based globally and also in specific countries and communities, so if I write &quot;FBI, CIA&quot; it is only examples and should NOT be seen as ONLY America. Furthermore, links or statements to the &quot;book of law&quot; for your specific country are also accepted. The question and answers will be used for research purposes on my paper that I am working on. FUNNY DILEMMA During one of my lectures, my Professor ended his lecture with If the Queen of England pointed a gun at the President of America and the President of America pointed a gun at the Queen of England, could you prosecute and/ or charge any of them? This was just a funny thought which I will post here also. footnotes With power is measured how much legal action a body has according to jurisdiktion. With government forces is meant any government, branches - hereby of police, military, special forces, FBI, CIA, positions of authority like President, foreign affairs, Kings, Queens, Princes, Princesses, The Head of State's personal staff (hereby Doctors, bodyguards, nutrients, Chef etc.).
The question that you pose can't be answered in the abstract and the conceptual framework you introduce in the section entitled &quot;Resume&quot; is largely unsound from a legal perspective, even if it may have some political theory usefulness. Indeed, even the framework of &quot;relative power&quot; doesn't really work. The question almost always presents itself in a binary fashion. Either a law enforcement officer has authority to do some particular thing, or the officer doesn't. Frequently, there are multiple law enforcement officers in different agencies who all have the authority to do a particular thing, and whoever gets there first may do so. In U.S. law, law enforcement is highly decentralized. There are hundreds of distinct federal law enforcement agencies, dozens of distinct law enforcement agencies in every single state, and almost every local government (sometimes even school districts, water boards, and park districts) have their own law enforcement agencies. All told, the number of independent law enforcement agencies in the U.S. is in the low tens of thousands. Something on the order of 90%+ of those law enforcement officers report to local governments like cities and counties and have no direct chain of authority that goes up beyond that point. The remainder are split roughly equally between the state level and the federal level, but highly fragmented within each such level between different agencies within each state and with the federal government. The most common kind of law enforcement officer in the federal government is not the stereotypical F.B.I. agent. Instead, it is a federal park ranger. A few small states are more centralized (e.g. Hawaii), but massive decentralization is the norm. The law enforcement officers in every single one of those agencies has a statutorily defined jurisdiction. Rather than being a neat hierarchy in which one law enforcement agent is always superior to another law enforcement agent, one has to analyze the circumstances in light of a particular grant of jurisdiction. There are general trends in how these grants of authority are made, but they are far from uniform. Most grants of authority include both territorial and subject matter elements. State police can typically arrest anyone for a violation of state law within their state, but not for violations of federal law or the laws of another state under circumstances where a citizens arrest is not authorized and where there isn't a warrant outstanding. A state game warden can arrest you for violating hunting laws in his geographic area, but not for violating state tax laws or federal immigration laws. A village constable in a tiny hamlet in rural Tennessee can arrest the chief of police for the Tennessee Valley Authority's law enforcement agency (the TVA is a federally charted independent government agency), for drunk driving in that constable's village. In contrast, an F.B.I. special agent doesn't have the authority to make that arrest, but could arrest either the village constable or the TVA chief of police for taking a bribe contrary to federal anti-corruption laws. There are law enforcement officers who specialize in investigating crimes by other law enforcement officers (often in the same agency). In state and local police agencies these are usually called &quot;internal affairs officers&quot;, with a unit in the state police or state bureau of investigation that works closely with a unit of the state attorney general's office having a secondary role in this task. In the federal government, the Inspector General's office in each cabinet department is typically charged with primary responsibility for these kinds of investigations. In the military, improprieties by active duty soldiers in connection with their implementation of the Uniform Code of Military Justice would usually be investigated by the criminal investigation service in each cabinet level department (i.e. the Army, the Navy (including the Marines Corps), and the Air Force) within the Department of Defense. But in neither case is the conceptual issue one of authority. Usually any law enforcement officer in a particular agency has authority to arrest any other law enforcement officer from the same agency (with the possible exception of their direct superiors). It is a question of focus and job responsibilities, not of legal authority. There is a notion of federal supremacy under the U.S. Constitution. In a bald showdown of authority between federal law enforcement officers and state law enforcement officers, say, over who is entitled to custody of a non-law enforcement officer criminal who has been arrested, the federal law enforcement officers will prevail. But, these showdowns are rare, and interagency conflicts within state governments and the federal government respectively, if not reconciled sooner, are more often resolved by a Governor or President, through a chain of management command authority within that governmental entity, than in the courts. Even when there is no one shared chief executive between law enforcement officers, usually these disputes are resolved by negotiation between the chiefs of the respective officers, rather than through legal channels. This is much less true in most countries other than the U.S. Most countries have far fewer independent law enforcement agencies, and have more clear and hierarchical lines of authority between them. This distinction is illustrated by your professor's example: If the Queen of England pointed a gun at the President of America and the President of America pointed a gun at the Queen of England, could you prosecute and/ or charge any of them? In the U.K., nobody has the authority to arrest the Queen, and the authority to arrest the U.S. President would be highly limited by diplomatic treaties relating to the treatment of foreign heads of state. In the U.S., the question is tricker and quite fact specific. The President has immunity for his official acts, but not for his private acts. If this standoff with guns breaks out on the floor of the U.N. in the context of a breakdown of negotiations, the President hasn't committed a U.S. crime. On the other hand, suppose that the President and the Queen have been having a private tryst at a bed and breakfast at our small village hamlet in Tennessee where they have managed to escape their respective security details. (Pardon me for bringing such an icky vision into your head, this is purely for educational purposes and you should censor your own thoughts as you imagine it. I blame the questioner's professor for presenting a scenario that has this possible aspect to it.) The village constable can arrest the President for this crime in violation of Tennessee law (assuming that the President doesn't have legal justification for his acts such as self-defense) since this act was conducted in an unofficial capacity. But he probably can't arrest and charge the Queen under diplomatic treaties that the U.S. has with the U.K. In contrast, a U.S. Secret Service agent would have authority to seize the Queen sufficiently to disarm her and prevent her from being a threat to the President, even if he couldn't charge her with any crime.
Lawyers neither try nor judge cases; they advise and argue them. Criminal cases in jurisdictions based on British law (which seems to be what you are asking about) are tried by prosecution and defence both putting their best arguments to the court (either a judge or a jury) who then reaches a verdict. There is no reason why the prosecuting lawyer should not be a police officer (assuming he is properly qualified), though in reality 'prosecuting advocate' is a full-time job, so the officer would need to transfer to the District Attorney's office or something similar. Actually, such an officer would be wasted by a transfer to advocacy. Somebody who knows not only what evidence is inadmissible and the leading cases on permitted searches but also where the local crime blackspots are and which officers, likely to fall apart on creoss-examination, should not be put up as the only witness is valuable enough that the authorities (whoever they may be) will make considerable efforts to use these talents to best effect.
Can a vigilante perform an arrest? This depends on whether the vigilante has the power to perform a citizen's arrest. The rules depend on the jurisdiction (and vary from state to state in the US), but generally the power to perform a citizen's arrest is quite limited. It may include the power to 'pre-empt' an offence if the would-be offender has attempted to commit the offence. However, often the power is limited to particularly serious offences (eg. felonies). There may also be a requirement that the crime occurred in the citizen's presence, or that the citizen was unable to contact the police instead. Is evidence obtained by a vigilante admissible? In the United States, the constitutional exclusionary rule generally prevents evidence from being admitted if the government obtained it illegally. I answered a general question about the scope of the exclusionary rule here. However, the Fourth Amendment exclusionary rule does not apply to evidence obtained illegally by a private individual: Burdeau v. McDowell, 256 U.S. 465 (1921). In Burdeau, the defendant's papers had been stolen and turned over to the government, which proposed to present them as evidence to a grand jury. The Supreme Court said: In the present case, the record clearly shows that no official of the federal government had anything to do with the wrongful seizure of the petitioner's property ... there was no invasion of the security afforded by the Fourth Amendment against unreasonable search and seizure, as whatever wrong was done was the act of individuals in taking the property of another ... We assume that petitioner has an unquestionable right of redress against those who illegally and wrongfully took his private property under the circumstances herein disclosed, but with such remedies we are not now concerned. However, the exclusionary rule in some states goes beyond the Fourth Amendment. For example, article 38.23 of the Texas Code of Criminal Procedure provides that evidence illegally obtained 'by an officer or other person' is inadmissible. This provision was apparently enacted to deter vigilantes: Bubany and Cockerell, 'Excluding Criminal Evidence Texas-Style: Can Private Searches Poison the Fruit?' 12 Texas Tech Law Review 611 (1981), p 625. Can such evidence be admitted even if the vigilante is not present? Assuming that no exclusionary rule applies, evidence obtained by a vigilante can potentially be admitted through the testimony of a police officer or other witness, subject to the rule against hearsay and the question of reliability. The rule against hearsay means that a police officer cannot give evidence that a vigilante told them that the accused was guilty. Evidence of this kind is not admissible because the accused has no opportunity to challenge the reliability of the source of the information in cross-examination. The rule against hearsay does not apply when the probative value of the evidence does not depend on the truth of the absent vigilante's assertion. If the evidence provided by the vigilante is really 'damning' then it might fall into this category. For example, a vigilante might provide the police with a weapon that has the accused and victim's DNA on it, or tell the police that incriminating evidence can be found at a particular location. A police officer can then give evidence that the weapon was tested and found to have matching DNA, or a search warrant was executed and the incriminating evidence was found. There is no admissibility issue here. However, the fact that the police were tipped off by a vigilante who has broken the law and is not present to face court may cause the jury to reject the evidence as unreliable (ie. it could have been planted).
Yes. This is legal, even though it is highly unlikely. There were very few, if any, instances of the federal pardon power being used this way historically, but it could happen, and President Trump, while he was in office, intimated that he might use the pardon power in this fashion. Realistically, it would be easier for the President to prevent someone from being prosecuted in the first place if the crime took place during his term, but he might pardon someone who committed the crime under a previous administration. The fact pattern in the question: “don’t be surprised if I pardon anyone that puts to death repeat heroin and fentanyl dealers dealing in amounts larger than 50 pounds” doesn't sound very morally palatable. But consider a slight variant of it which is much more plausible. Suppose that while running for office a Presidential candidate says: don't be surprised if I pardon someone who was convicted of homicide in a previous administration for killing someone who had been using them as a sex slave in a human trafficking network, or killing someone who was in the process of raping them shortly before their divorce became final but was not allowed to assert a self-defense argument at trial because marital rape was legal at the time. Now arguably that's different, because it doesn't induce someone to commit a future crime. But the President has broad discretion to make policy to de-emphasize certain kinds of criminal prosecutions in any case while in office even without the pardon power, and generally, this is not a basis for having a special prosecutor appointed at the federal level since there is no individualized conflict of interest. Of course, the U.S. President can only pardon someone from a federal crime and can't pardon state crimes or criminal convictions from other countries. So, even if the President pardoned someone of a federal crime in this situation, the state in which the murders took place could prosecute the individual for murder unimpeded (constitutional double jeopardy considerations would also not bar a state prosecution following the federal prosecution). Indeed, the vast majority of murder prosecutions are made under state law, and there are very few murders that take place which are beyond the jurisdiction of any U.S. state and any foreign country, that are in the jurisdiction of the U.S. government and covered by a federal homicide statute, in any year. As noted by @hszmv in a comment to another answer: Federal Murder charges are a thing and can be prosecuted, but are normally reserved for murders that either involve federal government employees (especially if they are murdered because of the duties the performed in the course of their duty or the status as a federal employee) OR murders that occur on Federally Owned Property OR the Murder involved crossing state lines OR is in U.S. Jurisdiction but not in a territory or state jurisdiction (usually applies to some uninhabited territorial islands or U.S./International Waters). Further, a pardon would not prohibit the victim's family for suing the murderer for wrongful death, and indeed, probably wouldn't prohibit them from using the murder conviction that was pardoned to conclusively establish liability in a civil case under the doctrine of collateral estoppel (I haven't researched that highly specific and technical civil procedure issue, however, but even if that wasn't possible, the murder trial transcript would be admissible in the civil case). A civil judgement for wrongful death was famously obtained against O.J. Simpson by the victim's family after O.J. Simpson was acquitted in a criminal murder trial. This tactic would really only be helpful to a prospective defendant with respect to cases where there is not a parallel criminal offense under state law.
In addition to the general considerations of (1) who is allowed to use non-deadly physical force to maintain order in a shop (which I think that one could do if "deputized" by the property owner or to protect the property of another as well), and (2) the use of non-deadly physical force to make a citizen's arrest (which many of these scenarios would justify as the disorder would be a crime if committed by an adult), (3) I suspect that there is also some point at which a bystander may intervene to prevent harms associated with an unsupervised minor being at large and in need of supervision. Generally speaking, intervention with the minimum reasonable non-deadly physical force to prevent property damage, or an assault, or a threat, is going to be permissible. As to the third reason: for a mentally normal ten-year-old that might be a stretch; for a four-year-old or a clearly impaired older child it might not. One could approach the child, say, "where's your mom or dad", "do you have a babysitter or sibling around?", "what is your name?", or "are you lost?" and detain the child until a satisfactory answer is provided or a suitable authority arrives, to prevent the problem of a child being lost, abducted or hurt by the child's own actions. It would be quite hard for a parent, guardian or babysitter to complain about this kind of conduct when the child was unsupervised and is released as soon as you confirm that this really is a responsible adult or older minor who is responsible for the child. It would be important in doing so to not secret away or isolate the child, to try to determine the location of the child's caretaker, to refrain from doing anything that would harm the child, and to seek assistance from an authority within a reasonable time. Typically, if no caretaker appeared, a cop would come and the cop would oversee the situation until a social worker could come. For example, Colorado has the following statute that would apply once a cop arrived (omitting lengthy provisions that apply to newborn children): § 19-3-401. Taking children into custody (1) A child may be taken into temporary custody by a law enforcement officer without order of the court: (a) When the child is abandoned, lost, or seriously endangered in such child's surroundings or seriously endangers others and immediate removal appears to be necessary for such child's protection or the protection of others; (b) When there are reasonable grounds to believe that such child has run away or escaped from such child's parents, guardian, or legal custodian and the child's parents, guardian, or legal custodian has not made a report to a law enforcement agency that the child has run away from home; . . . (1.3) A child shall be taken into temporary custody by a law enforcement officer without order of the court when there are reasonable grounds to believe the child has run away from the child's parents, guardian, or legal custodian and the child's parents, guardian, or legal custodian has made a report to a law enforcement agency that the child has run away from home. (1.5) An emergency exists and a child is seriously endangered as described in paragraph (a) of subsection (1) of this section whenever the safety or well-being of a child is immediately at issue and there is no other reasonable way to protect the child without removing the child from the child's home. If such an emergency exists, a child shall be removed from such child's home and placed in protective custody regardless of whether reasonable efforts to preserve the family have been made. (2) The taking of a child into temporary custody under this section shall not be deemed an arrest, nor shall it constitute a police record. A child is considered neglected or dependent under circumstances including the following (provisions related to drug or alcohol abuse by parents omitted): § 19-3-102. Neglected or dependent child (1) A child is neglected or dependent if: (a) A parent, guardian, or legal custodian has abandoned the child or has subjected him or her to mistreatment or abuse or a parent, guardian, or legal custodian has suffered or allowed another to mistreat or abuse the child without taking lawful means to stop such mistreatment or abuse and prevent it from recurring; (b) The child lacks proper parental care through the actions or omissions of the parent, guardian, or legal custodian; (c) The child's environment is injurious to his or her welfare; (d) A parent, guardian, or legal custodian fails or refuses to provide the child with proper or necessary subsistence, education, medical care, or any other care necessary for his or her health, guidance, or well-being; (e) The child is homeless, without proper care, or not domiciled with his or her parent, guardian, or legal custodian through no fault of such parent, guardian, or legal custodian; (f) The child has run away from home or is otherwise beyond the control of his or her parent, guardian, or legal custodian; I don't have easily at hand legal authority authorizing a third-party who is not a law enforcement officer to take custody of a dependent or neglected child until a law enforcement officer arrives, but I strongly suspect from the context that this is allowed either under common law, or a statute that I have not located, or some legal fiction (e.g., that the citizen is implicitly deputized by the law enforcement officer after the fact), or simply as a matter of custom and ordinary practice not codified in any authoritative legal source.
I take that to mean that section 14 alone should not be construed to give a department the power to sue under sub section (1), nor the ability to be sued under sub section (2). Rather, if some other law, or some other section of that law confers such a power or ability, section 14 indicates how the power should be used, that is, gives the proper procedure. But if no such other law is in effect, section 14 alone won't do. If the law has simply said: civil proceedings under this Act by the Crown may be instituted by (a) the appropriate government department in its own That might have been construed to grant such powers to every "appropriate " department, which apparently was not desired.
The president alone has power, under Article II, Section 2, Clause 1, to grant pardons for federal offenses. Many states have an analogous power for governors, to pardon state offenses. In some states, though (for example Minnesota), there is a board in charge of the process (made up, in Minnesota, of the Governor, Chief Justice and Attorney General). Likewise, in Canada, pardons are granted by a board. Although POTUS has the power, in terms of implementation it is a bit more complicated, since he doesn't sit around wondering "Who should I pardon": he has an Office of the Pardon Attorney who makes recommendations. However, there are other ways to get out of jail (besides doing the time), namely having the conviction overturned, being paroled, and credit for good behavior. Federal parole is no longer an option, but the other avenues are open, at least in principle.
The concept of reasonable suspicion is used throughout the common law world. While the Wikipedia article (at present) focuses on the term as used in the ‘stop and search’ context of Terry v. Ohio, a different line of authority has emerged in the interpretation of police powers (both with and without warrant) in Commonwealth countries. Commonwealth case law One significant authority is Hussien v Chong Fook Kam [1970] AC 942, a decision of the Privy Council on appeal from the Federal Court of Malaysia. This case concerned the interpretation of a power of arrest, under the Malaysian Criminal Code, which arose if “reasonable suspicion existed of [the plaintiffs’] having been concerned in an offence …” Lord Devlin, delivering the judgment of the court, said: Suspicion in its ordinary meaning is a state of conjecture or surmise where proof is lacking: “I suspect but I cannot prove.” Suspicion arises at or near the starting-point of an investigation of which the obtaining of prima facie proof is the end. When such proof has been obtained, the police case is complete; it is ready for trial and passes on to its next stage. It is indeed desirable as a general rule that an arrest should not be made until the case is complete. But if arrest before that were forbidden, it could seriously hamper the police. To give power to arrest on reasonable suspicion does not mean that it is always or even ordinarily to be exercised. It means that there is an executive discretion. In the exercise of it many factors have to be considered besides the strength of the case ... There is no serious danger in a large measure of executive discretion in the first instance because in countries where common law principles prevail the discretion is subject indirectly to judicial control. Lord Devlin noted that “the test of reasonable suspicion prescribed by the Code is one that has existed in the common law for many years,” and continued, citing Dumbell v Roberts [1944] 1&nbsp;All&nbsp;ER&nbsp;326: The police are not called upon before acting to have anything like a prima facie case for conviction ... Prima facie proof consists of admissible evidence. Suspicion can take into account matters that could not be put in evidence at all. The Privy Council’s judgment was quoted with approval by the High Court of Australia in George v Rockett (1990) 170 CLR 104. Terry v. Ohio Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1 (1968) involved testing police conduct “by the Fourth Amendment’s general proscription against unreasonable searches and seizures,” and deciding whether, if the petitioner’s constitutional right had been violated, the exclusionary rule should prevent the use of evidence obtained in the search. The Supreme Court held: [T]he quite narrow question posed by the facts before us [is] whether it is always unreasonable for a policeman to seize a person and subject him to a limited search for weapons unless there is probable cause for an arrest. It is important to remember the constitutional context of Terry v. Ohio. The analysis of a statutory grant of search powers upon reasonable suspicion, particularly in a jurisdiction with no constitutional bill of rights, is a different exercise. It is also significant that one purpose of the Fourth Amendment was to curtail the abuse of the royal writ of assistance, which a customs officer must hold to exercise the power conferred by s&nbsp;161 of the Customs and Excise Management Act! The Customs and Excise Management Act There is a good chance that a statute of the United Kingdom, conferring police-like powers on a public officer upon reasonable suspicion, would be interpreted in accordance with the long history of the use of that term at common law. The scope of any litigation would probably depend on the procedure that brought the question before the court – for example, judicial review of a warrant, an action to recover goods, or an action for damages. I am not aware of any case law on s&nbsp;161. Perhaps there are not that many customs officers holding a royal writ of assistance. But any court reviewing the scope of that power would consider the purpose of the legislation, as well as the traditional common law meaning of ‘reasonable suspicion.’