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Home » Law Dictionary » P » PROSECUTOR

PROSECUTOR

TheLaw.com Law Dictionary & Black's Law Dictionary 2nd Ed.

(A) An attorney employed by local, state or federal government to bring and litigate criminal cases against persons charged with a crime. (B) practice. He who prosecutes another for a crime in the name of the government. 2. Prosecutors are public or private. The public prosecutor is an officer appointed by the government, to prosecute all offences; he is the attorney general or his deputy. 3. A private prosecutor is one who prefers an accusation against a party whom be suspects to be guilty. Every man may become a prosecutor, but no man is bound except in some few of the more enormous offences, as treason, to be one but if the prosecutor should compound a felony, he will be guilty of a crime. The prosecutor has an inducement to prosecute, because he cannot, in many cases, have any civil remedy until he has done his duty to society by an endeavor to bring the offender to justice. If a prosecutor act from proper motives, me will not be responsible to the party in damages, though he was mistaken in his suspicions; but if, from a motive of revenge, he institute a criminal prosecution without any reasonable foundation, he may be punished by being mulcted in damages in an action for a malicious prosecution.

Law Dictionary – Alternative Legal Definition

In practice. He who prosecutes another for a crime in the name of the government. Private prosecutor. One who sets in motion the machinery of criminal justice against a person whom he suspects or believes to be guilty of a crime, by laying an accusation before the proper authorities, and who is not himself an officer of justice. See Heacock v. State, 13 Tex. App. 129; State v. Millain, 3 Nev. 425. Prosecutor of the pleas. This name is given, in New Jersey, to the county officer who is charged with the prosecution of criminal actions, corresponding to the “district attorney” or ”county attorney” in other states. Public prosecutor. An officer of government (such as a state’s attorney or district attorney) whose function is the prosecution of criminal actions, or suits partaking of the nature of criminal actions.

Related Posts:

  • SPECIAL PROSECUTOR
  • PROSECUTE
  • UNITED STATES ATTORNEY
  • DISTRICT ATTORNEY (D.A.)
  • ATTORNEY GENERAL
  • ADVOCATE GENERAL

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