Law Commons^™

The Crime Victim’S "Right" To A Criminal Prosecution: A Proposed Model Statute For The Governance Of Private Criminal Prosecution, Peter L. Davis

Scholarly Works

The thesis of this article is that the public prosecutor should to have a monopoly on criminal prosecutions; some supplementary system of private criminal prosecution should be available. Two such systems, or models, currently exist in New York. The first model, available statewide, theoretically allows a complainant to initiate a non-felony criminal prosecution without any screening by a prosecutor or judge. This system is unwise, unworkable and illusory because it obscures the exercise of judicial discretion and focuses the court’s attention on the wrong issues, usually precluding the crime victim’s complaint. The second model, limited by statute to New York …

The Fifth Amendment: If An Aid To The Guilty Defendant, An Impediment To The Innocent One, Peter W. Tague

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The fifth amendment's privilege not to answer, critics carp, insulates the guilty defendant from revealing his complicity. While this is true, ironically it also can shackle the innocent defendant from attempting to prove that another person committed the crime. If that other person asserts the fifth amendment in response to questions designed to substitute him for the defendant, the innocent defendant can neither surmount that person's assertion nor benefit therefrom.

Consider this set of facts. A murder is committed. Defendant, charged with the crime, has evidence that Witness killed the victim. The prosecution believes only one person committed the crime. …