Public prosecutor

“ Should a public prosecutor find that the institution of a criminal case would not be in the interest of the public or would have an effect on the safety or security of the Nation or on an important benefit of the Country, he shall submit the matter to the Attorney General, and the Attorney General shall have the power to order that the institution of the case be withheld. ”

“ It is the duty of a prosecutor to see that infractions of the criminal law are punished and to represent the public in all proceedings had for that purpose, but, in view of what has just been said, it will be observed that his duties do not necessarily involve familiarity with vice, violence or even sin. ”

“ The public prosecutor, as being the person entrusted with the interest of [Pg 189] the community, and as representing the community, has the primary right to take up the matter; and, having commenced proceedings for behoof of the community, he cannot be stayed or hindered, or impeded in his prosecution for punishment, by any right or any interest which any private party can claim; and he may do, and daily does, many things which exclude the private party from demanding punishment.... ”

“ The prosecutor has more control over life, liberty, and reputation than any other person in America. His discretion is tremendous. He can have citizens investigated and, if he is that kind of person, he can have this done to the tune of public statements and veiled or unveiled intimations. Or the prosecutor may choose a more subtle course and simply have a citizen's friends interviewed. The prosecutor can order arrests, present cases to the grand jury in secret session, and on the basis of his one-sided presentation of the facts, can cause the citizen to be indicted and held for trial. ”

“ The moment a capital crime occurs, the criminal employs the ablest counsel he can get. The relatives of the dead man, if they are important persons, retain the best lawyer they can find to assist the public prosecutor, and the game begins.
The first move is to bring the prisoner before an examining magistrate, in order to have him committed to jail to await the action of the grand jury. This examining magistrate is almost always an official that the public prosecutor can control. One was recently asked to separate the witnesses before him. ”

“ Every principle of humanity, of justice, and of policy, is opposed to such a proceeding. There is no precedent—there is no authority for such a proceeding. The informant acted in the belief that he had secured his protection. The Public Prosecutor acted in the belief that he was entitled to secure, and had secured to him, that protection, and had done so for the ultimate benefit of the public, in securing the conviction and punishment of an offender. ”

“ It became a matter of serious concernment to have it clearly and well decided by the highest legal authorities, what are the extent and limits of the Lord Advocate’s powers as Public Prosecutor, to enter into compacts with associates in crime, whereby he may afford them an immunity from punishment for participation in crimes, on condition of their affording such evidence as may be requisite for the discovery and punishment of offences, in cases, which from their very nature, can neither be traced out nor established to conviction of the delinquents, without such information and evidence ”

“ Crimes of whatever sort, except police offences, are as a rule subjected to preliminary examination before actual trial. When, however, the charge is perfectly clear of doubt, the procurators ask for an immediate trial in the case of minor crimes. The conducting of criminal cases, from the very beginning down to the execution of the criminal, if he be condemned to suffer death, rests with the procurator, who unites in his own person the functions of public prosecutor and of grand jury. ”

“ There is no necessity for anything beyond the conservative spirit natural to every institution of the State, or the principle of authority which is a special form of it, apart from the less respectable motives of interested subservience to such as are in office and dispense promotion.
Hence it will be useful, in initiating criminal proceedings, to add to the action of a Public Prosecutor (but not to substitute for him) the action of private persons.
Criminal proceedings by citizens may take two forms, according as they are put in operation only by the injured person or by any individual. ”

“ The Office of Public Prosecutor, without prejudice to functions entrusted to other bodies, has the task of promoting the operation of justice in the defence of the rule of law, of citizens' rights and of the public interest as safeguarded by the law, whether ex officio or at the request of interested parties, as well as that of protecting the independence of the courts and securing before them the satisfaction of social interest. ”

“ Public prosecutor’s office is an independent State body which prosecutes the perpetrators of criminal offences and other criminal acts which are punishable under the law, and applies legal remedies in order to protect constitutionality and legality. ”

“ The federal public prosecutor shall be nominated and removed by the Federal Assembly. The public prosecutor of the republic shall be appointed and removed by the federal public prosecutor with the approval of the republican executive council. All other public prosecutors shall be appointed by the public prosecutor of the republic. ”

“ The public prosecutor and the defense counsel have the right to put pertinent questions to the witnesses and to the experts, which the judge must permit in accordance with the regulations within the framework of the code of criminal procedure. ”

“ Any interference by the executive in the judicial trial of a case is strongly resented; but it is open to a commissioner to set the public prosecutor in motion, or to employ special counsel to look after the effective prosecution of a difficult and important case. ”

“ Nothing better can come out of this meeting of law enforcement officers than a rededication to the spirit of fair play and decency that should animate the federal prosecutor. Your positions are of such independence and importance that while you are being diligent, strict, and vigorous in law enforcement you can also afford to be just. Although the government technically loses its case, it has really won if justice has been done. The lawyer in public office is justified in seeking to leave behind him a good record. ”

“ In this regard, the public prosecutor shall become a senior administrative or police official and have the powers and duties according to the Criminal Procedure Code, by virtue of which he may participate with a police officer or other officer in making, or may request a police officer or other officer to make, a search, arrest, or detention. ”

“ If the accused has no lawyer, the court must appoint one for him. While a man so appointed must defend the case, the best lawyers are not secured in this way. There has been considerable demand for the creation of the office of public defender for accused persons. The State employs public prosecutors, and it is argued that it should be as much interested in proving a man’s innocence as in proving his guilt. ”

“ The legislature, with the intention of stimulating the exertions of police-officers, and inducing others to give information, had awarded certain rewards to the parties who should contribute to the conviction of offenders against the laws. The object was laudable, but it was capable of great perversion, and was liable to many objections; it gave the prosecutor an interest in the conviction of the accused, and on that account tended to impress the public with the belief that the condemnation, and not the acquittal of the prisoner, was the object of our criminal laws. ”

“ A defendant should be left to get any lawyer or any expert he wishes. No one can be sure that the state expert will be better than the others. All one can say is that state experts may not be partisans, but, in effect, this would mean that they would not be partisans for the defendant. The constant association with the prosecutor, the officers of the jail, the public officials, and those charged with enforcing the law, would almost surely place them on the side of the state. Such men must be elected or appointed by some tribunal. ”

“ And we have frequently set aside state criminal convictions as a denial of due process of law because of coercive questioning of suspects by public prosecutors and other law enforcement officers in their official chambers. ”

“ It is very true, my Lords, that the humanity of public prosecutors of late years has induced them to be more special than they had any occasion to be, but surely they are not cut off from the generality allowed them by law, although such generality may have been deviated from through lenity in practice. ”

“ Public prosecutors have the right to enter appeals and suits, the right of legal intervention in the course of judicial and administrative proceedings, the right to institute criminal proceedings and the right to file a demand for the defense of legality against valid resolutions of law courts and administrative organs. ”

“ Investigation and prosecution are conducted under the unified direction of the Supreme Public Prosecutors Office, and all Public Prosecutors Offices are subordinate to their higher offices and the Supreme Public Prosecutors Office. ”

“ But it may appoint proper officers to be on the watch in public places where misdemeanors are most commonly committed; establish public prosecutors, who may, in virtue of their office, proceed against suspected persons; and, lastly, make it legally binding on all the citizens to lend their assistance to the task, by denouncing not only crimes which are contemplated but not yet committed, but those which are already perpetrated, and the criminal agents concerned in them. ”

“ As a final basis for allowing absolute immunity for legal advice, the Court of Appeals observed that there are several checks other than civil litigation to prevent abuses of authority by prosecutors. 894 F.2d, at 956. Although we agree, we note that one of the most important checks, the judicial process, will not necessarily restrain out-of-court activities by a prosecutor that occur prior to the initiation of a prosecution, such as providing legal advice to the police. This is particularly true if a suspect is not eventually prosecuted. ”

“ The ordinary citizen quite naturally gains his impressions of the administration of criminal justice by reading accounts of sensational trials. He imagines that the daily life of the prosecutor consists in demanding the conviction of hardened felons with sordid, crime-tracked features, varied by occasional spectacular "star cases" where counsel for the defendant and the prosecutor vie with one another in stupendous outbursts of oratory in which the bird of liberty screams unrestrained and Justice frantically waves her scales. ”

“ Technically it is so, of course; but who is the real prosecutor? Who has been the moving spirit all along—if not [Pg 137] the prosecutor, then the persecutor? Who has lost, or professes to have lost, his wretched jewels? Who, the moment he heard that the crime was discovered, turned round and hurled his brutal accusation at this helpless girl? Who rushed off to lodge his information, so as to be beforehand in case any information were to be lodged against him? Who instructed the solicitors at the inquest? Who gave evidence there and at the police-court? ”

“ The attorney-general has always represented the crown in criminal matters, and in state prosecutions appears in person on behalf of the crown, and when he so appears has certain privileges as respects the reply to the prisoner’s defence and the mode of trial. In the Prosecution of Offences Acts of 1879, 1884 and 1908 there is to be found the nucleus of a system of public prosecution such as obtains in other countries in case of crime. ”

“ Just as there should be no permitting of local considerations to stop federal enforcement, so there should be no striving to enlarge our power over local affairs and no use of federal prosecutions to exert an indirect influence that would be unlawful if exerted directly.
The qualities of a good prosecutor are as elusive and as impossible to define as those which mark a gentleman. ”

“ Justice would be more speedy and just as effective if the prosecution of all crimes were instituted before an examining magistrate, and the grand jury would then, at the summons of the court, meet to perform only those important and peculiar functions of investigation that are consonant with its dignity and necessary to the public weal. ”

“ The criminal proceedings in France, while different from those under the common law, yet still have some analogy therewith. There is no grand jury, but in its stead is an officer now called juge d’instruction. In this court no such special officer seems to have existed, but the duty of examining the witnesses, as done by the grand jury in the United States, was performed by the court itself, aided by the prosecutor. Instead of an indictment charging the crime as under the common law, an information is filed. ”

“ In the third place, because, while the general rule which is stated establishes the authority of the district attorney as official prosecutor, and makes it, as we have seen, coterminous with the right of the grand jury to consider, the exception subjects that authority to the exercise of a judicial discretion, which, as well illustrated by the case under consideration, destroys it. ”

“ The certainty in England also that criminal prosecutions may in any case be subjected to the power of a public officer by the interposition of the Attorney-General or the Director of Public Prosecutions makes it more important to safeguard a defendant who may be arraigned for a political offense, and whose prosecution may be inspired by reasons of a partisan nature. The magistrates upon whom the task of conducting or superintending the examination would naturally fall are also largely both representative of class interests and unlearned in the law. ”