What role do the police have rather than the CPS in &quot;charging&quot; criminals? What is the difference for that matter between &quot;charging&quot; and &quot;prosecuting&quot;?
The charging guide outlines the division of charging responsibility between police and the Crown Prosecution Service: The police may charge: Any summary only offence, irrespective of plea; Any offence of retail theft (shoplifting) or attempted retail theft, irrespective of plea, provided it is suitable for sentence in the magistrates’ court; and Any either way offence anticipated as a guilty plea and suitable for sentence in magistrates’ court; Provided that this is not: a case requiring the consent to prosecute of the DPP or Law Officer; a case involving a death; connected with terrorist activity or official secrets; classified as Hate Crime or Domestic Abuse under CPS Policies; a case of harassment or stalking; an offence of Violent Disorder or Affray; causing Grievous Bodily Harm or Wounding, or Actual Bodily Harm; a Sexual Offences Act offence committed by or upon a person under 18; an offence under the Licensing Act 2003. Prosecutors make charging decisions in all cases not allocated to police.
Only Parliament has the power to define crimes in law (well, also in the UK there are common law crimes, where ages ago the courts defined punishable wrongs). The police have the power to enforce existing law, but not the power to create new crimes. Part of police power is the power to use force to enforce laws. If a person is trying to kill another (which is a crime), the police can use force to stop the person from committing this crime. Police power can be statutorily encoded (Parliament passes a law saying what police can and cannot do), or it could be part of common law. As for laws regulating a suspect, there may be a specific statutory prohibition – &quot;you may not reach into your pocket&quot; – or there is a common law inference to be made, that if the police have the power to order you to not reach into your pocket you may be forced to comply. The subtle distinction here is that if it is a crime to reach into your pocket when told not to, you can be prosecuted and imprisoned. If there is no such crime, you just have the consequence that you can be roughed up to some extent for disobeying the police order. One act of Parliament is the Offences against the Person Act 1861 §38 which says Whosoever . . . shall assault any person with intent to resist or prevent the lawful apprehension or detainer of himself or of any other person for any offence, shall be guilty of a misdemeanor, and being convicted thereof shall be liable, at the discretion of the court, to be imprisoned for any term not exceeding two years, NB &quot;assault&quot; does not require physical contact: creating apprehension suffices. Another law is the Police Act 1996 §89 which says Any person who resists or wilfully obstructs a constable in the execution of his duty, or a person assisting a constable in the execution of his duty, shall be guilty of an offence and liable on summary conviction to imprisonment for a term not exceeding one month or to a fine not exceeding level 3 on the standard scale, or to both These laws do not exhaustively list all of the things that are forbidden (e.g. they do not say &quot;may not bite. nor scratch, nor kick...&quot;), instead, the prohibitions fall under the general rubric of assault and resisting. Under the circumstances, it is possible that the person could be criminally prosecuted, but even in lieu of a prosecution, it is strongly probable that the police use of force in this instance was lawful. One would have to await the outcome of investigations and litigation to know for sure.
No, filing a police report in good faith does not expose you to liability Of course, making false allegations or allegations where you are recklessly indifferent to the truth to police is both a serious crime in itself and defamation. Of course, breaking a contract is not a crime and the police are unlikely to take any action. If you borrow money from the bank and don’t pay it back, that’s not stealing or fraud unless it can be proven that you had no intention of paying it back when you borrowed it. This is a civil matter for the bank, not a criminal matter for the police.
Yes and no. There are numerous cases where criminals, upon breaking in to somewhere, find evidence of a worse crime and notify authorities. This will provide reasonable suspicion enough for entering the scene. Generally, in testimony, Statements against Interest are more believable because a burgler wouldn't admit to breaking and entering if he had a way to explain why he was there in the first place. (Example: Alice breaks into a Warehouse and sees a mutilated body and blood everywhere. Alice immediately stops her theiving ways and calls 911 to let them know about the scene. Whether or not Alice stays, a dead body is enough probable cause to secure the crime scene without warrant. Its in Alice's interests to stay and help as there is trace of her at the scene and she would be pegged as a suspected murderer. If she's picked up and admits to calling the cops, it's good, but staying and helping out after the call will likely get her off on the charges related to the murder.). It could also work if they are persuing one crime and discover evidence of a second unrelated crime. (i.e. Alice robs the factory and gets away. The Factory Foreman calls the cops to investigate the crime scene, which at this point, does not need a warrant. While investigating, the Cops find security footage that Bob, the night guard, killed Chuck, a late night worker, removed his body, and cleaned the scene, all before Alice broke into the factory. The outcome of the case being made against Alice does not affect their need to prosecute Bob, as they obtained that evidence while looking for Alice in a valid investigation, not Bob, thus it is legal). Under these situations a crime that leads to a separate valid crime involving a different party is admissible. There are two possible reasons that the attorney might think this: Fruit of the Poisonous Tree: This is the obvious element... the kids committed a crime with the hopes that the cops would use the evidence found by them in their commission of a crime to get the real bad guys. The attorney parent thinks this is stupid because the kids broke in specifically to do this and thus any evidence is now tossed out of court. This isn't usually the case in how this scenario will play. Generally the cops are more than happy to look at evidence obtained by criminals that points to another crime. In fact, this is how a lot of gang enforcement units and drug enforcement units operate... pick up a small fish and cut a deal for evidence against a bigger fish (turning state's in the criminal lingo, as the witness is becoming State's Evidence to another crime). As long as it's given to the cops as part of legitament evidence seeking, the cops can follow the leads where ever they... er... lead... Chain of Custody: This is probably, if properly thinking, what the attorney parent is thinking that's a bit more probable. Lets say these kids found a dead body with a sword in it and take the sword to the police... this could get dicey as the kids have contaminated the evidence in possible ways that the killer's lawyer could get thrown out. One thing CSI doesn't always show (though there are a few episodes where it comes up, but not many) is that when something is taken in as evidence, it is carefully documented, sealed, and tagged with a check in/check out list. Every time the seal is broken, the person breaking the seal notes the time, date, and reason and when does, reseals it with a new seal, and signs the time and date of the seal again. This is so at trial, the attorneys know exactly who opened up the evidence, what they did, and what possible contaminants were introduced. You even have to sign into a crime scene before you go up to the yellow tape. A good defense lawyer would call into question any evidence from anything the kids handled to get the evidence tossed (i.e. Your honor, these Meddling Kids handled the sword without following the chain of evidence. They even let their dog handle it. They had already harrassed my client earlier today by insunuating that he was involved with a hoaxed paranormal activity to scare people away from the factory. Since they claim they found the sword, but did document it at the scene, we don't know anything about it prior to the police's chain of custody. I motion that the evidence be dismissed.) If this is successful, anything from the sword is now no longer admissible as if the sword had never been found (including blood of the victim on the blade and finger prints of the suspect on the hilt)... in effect the evidence was prossessed as best the police could but the veracity of the story of it's discovery is too questionable to be considered. The defense does not have to be right, he just has to show there could be another explanation for the sword and the evidence linking his client to the crime committed by it. In short, without specific details, the attorney parent could be right or could be wrong, or more humorously, right, but for the wrong reasons. Edit: U.S. only. See other answers for other jurisdictions.
Police have discretion whether to arrest and prosecute or not. In exercising this discretion they may take into account whether victim is identified and what he/she says, but there are no legally enforceable rules around it. Discretion is discretionary after all. Other factors that may influence the police's decision whether to arrest notwithstanding whether the victim cares may include but are not limited to: Level of potential threat that the offender poses; Strength of evidence that the crime was committed (and hence prospects of conviction). Say the owner of the store may not care or have seen anything, but there are witnesses; Likelihood that the offender may get away; Personality of the offender; Mood of the police officer.
The Crown Prosecution Service has said: Since deceased persons cannot be prosecuted, the Crown Prosecution Service will not make a charging decision in respect of a suspect who is deceased.
There was a case like that in 2010 in germany tl;dr synopsis of the German article: The police raided the private home of an alleged member of a criminal gang. This was performed as a no-knock raid. The police officers did not announce themselves as such when they started to break open the door. The suspect had reason to believe that a rival gang was planning an attempt on his life. So the suspect believed that the people trying to break into his home were actually members of said gang trying to murder him. The suspect used a firearm to shoot at the intruders through the door, lethally injuring a police officer. When the police officers then identified themselves as such, the suspect surrendered immediately. A court later ruled that killing the police officer was self-defense, because they were reasonably convinced that the defendant was unaware that he was dealing with police officers, believed to be in a situation where his life was in danger and where lethal violence was the only way to save his life. Here is the verdict. [In German, of course]
england-and-wales &quot;Lead defendant&quot; is not used, unless colloquially by some, but a comparable term would be &quot;principal defendant&quot; which is more than mere style as it becomes important when establishing the hierarchy of defendants for, say, culpability and at sentencing (i.e. it has some legal implications). It could also relate to the first-named on the indictment (see rule 3.32(1)(b)(ii) Criminal Procedure Rules 2020) and often this is the principal, but the prosecutor has discretion on the order of names on the indictment, because: It is important to bear in mind that defendants are called to give evidence in the order in which their names appear on the indictment. This means that a tactical decision may need to be made as to the order of defendants on the indictment, bearing in mind the evidence and the nature of the case. Source Although tagged united-states, I have followed the guidance from the LawSE Help Centre: &quot;Even if you supply a jurisdiction tag, we expect and encourage answers dealing with other jurisdictions ... please tag your answer using the tag markdown: [tag: some-tag]&quot;