At 07:31 PM 2/17/96 +0000, you wrote:
Is it not possible in the US jurisdictions to mount private prosecutions? There is a common law right to do so in England.
I'm not aware of a corresponding right in the US, and am pretty sure that none exists. The victim of a crime can likely sue civilly for whatever damages s/he suffered, and can sometimes also recover attorney's fees & punitive damages (e.g., RICO). But I'm not aware of any procedure by which a citizen could bring a real criminal prosecution, with the corresponding risk of incarceration for the defendant, court-appointed counsel for indigent defendants, and so forth. Some statutes (the ones which spring to mind immediately are environmental statutes) allow private citizens to sue to enforce compliance with the law, if the government has been given notice of the violation and has failed to bring its own action for enforcement; but I don't think that those are criminal prosecutions. (I think we're wandering away from anything on-topic for C-punks, so further comments from me on this thread, if any, will likely be in private mail.) -- "The anchored mind screwed into me by the psycho- | Greg Broiles lubricious thrust of heaven is the one that thinks | gbroiles@netbox.com every temptation, every desire, every inhibition." | -- Antonin Artaud |