Directors of Public Prosecutions

In Australia, Canada, England and Wales, Hong Kong, Northern Ireland, Ireland and South Africa, the head of the prosecuting authority is typically known as the Director of Public Prosecutions, and is appointed, not elected. A DPP may be subject to varying degrees of control by the Attorney General, usually by a formal written directive which must be published.

In Australia, at least in the case of very serious matters, the DPP will be asked by the police, during the course of the investigation, to advise them on sufficiency of evidence, and may well be asked, if he or she thinks it proper, to prepare an application to the relevant court for search, listening device or telecommunications interception warrants.

More recent constitutions, such as South Africa's or Fiji's, tend to guarantee the independence and impartiality of the DPP.

Institutional independence

In many countries, the prosecutor's administration is directly subordinate to the executive branch (e.g. the US Attorney General is a member of the President's cabinet). In some other countries - such as Italy or Brazil - the prosecutors are judicial civil servants and so their hierarchy is installed with the same (or nearly the same) liberties and independence warranties which the judges traditionally enjoy.

In other countries, a form of private prosecution is available, meaning person(s) or a private entity can directly petition the courts to hold trial against someone they feel is guilty of a crime, should the prosecutor refuse to indict him/her.

Private prosecution

In the early history of England, the victim of a crime and his family had the right to hire a private attorney to prosecute criminal charges against the person alleged to have injured the victim.^[7] In the 18th century, prosecution of almost all criminal offenses in England was private, usually by the victim. In colonial America, because of Dutch (and possibly French) practice and the expansion of the office of attorney general, public officials came to dominate the prosecution of crimes. However, privately funded prosecutors constituted a significant element of the state criminal justice system throughout the nineteenth century. The use of a private prosecutor was incorporated into the common law of Virginia and is still permitted there. Private prosecutors were also used in North Carolina as late as 1975. Private prosecution has been used in Nigeria, but the practice is being phased out.

Bruce L. Benson's To Serve and Protect lauds the role of private prosecutors, often employed by prosecution associations, in serving the needs of crime victims in England. Radical libertarian theory holds that public prosecutors should not exist, but that crimes should instead be treated as civil torts. Murray Rothbard writes, "In a libertarian world, there would be no crimes against an ill-defined 'society,' and therefore no such person as a 'district attorney' who decides on a charge and then presses those charges against an alleged criminal." Private prosecution has been cited as a remedy for district attorneys' unwarranted inaction.

Утеков Даурен

In common usage, theft is the taking of another person's property without that person's permission or consent with the intent to deprive the rightful owner of it. The word is also used as an informal shorthand term for some crimes against property, such as burglary, embezzlement, larceny, looting, robbery, shoplifting and fraud. In some jurisdictions, theft is considered to be synonymous with larceny; in others, theft has replaced larceny. Someone who carries out an act of or makes a career of theft is known as a thief. The act of theft is known by terms such as stealing, thieving, and filching.

Robbery is the crime of taking or attempting to take something of value by force or threat of force or by putting the victim in fear. At common law, robbery is defined as taking the property of another, with the intent to permanently deprive the person of that property, by means of force or fear. Precise definitions of the offence may vary between jurisdictions. Robbery differs from simple theft in its use of violence and intimidation.

Among the types of robbery are armed robbery involving use of a weapon and aggravated robbery involving use of a deadly weapon or something that appears to be a deadly weapon. Highway robbery or "mugging" takes place outside and in a public place such as a sidewalk, street, or parking lot. Carjacking is the act of stealing a car from a victim by force. Extortion is the threat to do something illegal, or the offer to not do something illegal, in the event that goods are not given, primarily using words instead of actions.

Criminal slang for robbery includes "blagging" (armed robbery, usually of a bank) or "stick-up" (derived from the verbal command to robbery targets to raise their hands in the air), and "steaming" (organized robbery on underground train systems).

Extortion (also called shakedown, outwresting, and exaction) is a criminal offence of unlawfully obtaining money, property, or services from a person, entity, or institution, through coercion. Refraining from doing harm is sometimes euphemistically called protection. Extortion is commonly practiced by organized crime groups. The actual obtainment of money or property is not required to commit the offense. Making a threat of violence which refers to a requirement of a payment of money or property to halt future violence is sufficient to commit the offense. Exaction refers not only to extortion or the unlawful demanding and obtaining of something through force, but additionally, in its formal definition, means the infliction of something such as pain and suffering or making somebody endure something unpleasant.

Extortion is distinguished from robbery. In armed robbery, the offender takes goods from the victim with use of immediate force. In robbery goods are taken or an attempt is made to take the goods against the will of another—with or without force. A bank robbery or extortion of a bank can be committed by a letter handed by the criminal to the teller. In extortion, the victim is threatened to hand over goods, or else damage to their reputation or other harm or violence against them may occur. Under United States federal law extortion can be committed with or without the use of force and with or without the use of a weapon. A key difference is that extortion always involves a written or verbal threat whereas robbery can occur without any verbal or written threat.

Blackmail, which involves extortion, is when the offender threatens to reveal information about a victim or his family members that is potentially embarrassing, socially damaging, or incriminating unless a demand for money, property, or services is met.

The term extortion is often used metaphorically to refer to usury or to price-gouging, though neither is legally considered extortion. It is also often used loosely to refer to everyday situations where one person feels indebted against their will, to another, in order to receive an essential service or avoid legal consequences.

Neither extortion nor blackmail require a threat of a criminal act, such as violence, merely a threat used to elicit actions, money, or property from the object of the extortion. Such threats include the filing of reports (true or not) of criminal behaviour to the police, revelation of damaging facts (such as pictures of the object of the extortion in a compromising position), etc.

Burglary (also called breaking and entering and sometimes housebreaking) is a crime, the essence of which is illegal entry into a building for the purposes of committing an offence. Usually that offence will be theft, but most jurisdictions specify others which fall within the ambit of burglary. To engage in the act of burglary is to burgle (in British English) or to burglarize (in American English).

In criminal law, fraud is intentional deception made for personal gain or to damage another individual; the related adjective is fraudulent, and verb is defraud. Fraud is a crime and a civil law violation, though the specific criminal law definition varies by legal jurisdiction. Defrauding people or entities of money or valuables is a common purpose of fraud.

A hoax also involves deception, but without the intention of gain or of damaging or depriving the victim.

Цой Александра

In law, testimony is a solemn attestation as to the truth of a matter.

Etymology

The words "testimony" and "testify" both have a root in the Latin testis, referring to the notion of a third person, disinterested witness.

Law

In the law, testimony is a form of evidence that is obtained from a witness who makes a solemn statement or declaration of fact. Testimony may be oral or written, and it is usually made by oath or affirmation under penalty of perjury. Unless a witness is testifying as an expert witness, testimony in the form of opinions or inferences is generally limited to those opinions or inferences that are rationally based on the perceptions of the witness and are helpful to a clear understanding of the witness' testimony.

When a witness is asked a question, the opposing attorney can raise an objection, which is a legal move to disallow an improper question, preferably before the witness answers, and mentioning one of the standard reasons, including:

· argumentative or inflammatory

· asked and answered

· best evidence rule

· calls for speculation

· calls for a conclusion

· compound question or narrative

· hearsay

· irrelevant, immaterial, incompetent (this is actually not a proper objection because the term "incompetent" is meaningless and the words "irrelevant" and "immaterial" have the same meaning under the Federal Rules of Evidence). Historically, however, the phase had some meaning. Irrelevant evidence referred to evidence that has no provative value (i.e., does not tend to prove any fact). Immaterial refers to evidence that is probative, but not as to any fact material to the case. Incompetent is a catch-all for inadmissible, but typically referred to evidence that is probative of a material fact but is otherwise inadmissible, for example because it is hearsay or privileged. See Black's Law Dictionary (7th Ed.).

· lack of foundation

· leading question

· privilege

· vague

· ultimate issue testimony

There may also be an objection to the answer, including:

· non-responsive

Up until the mid-20th century, in much of the United States, an attorney often had to follow an objection with an exception to preserve the issue for appeal. If an attorney failed to "take an exception" immediately after the court's ruling on the objection, he waived his client's right to appeal the issue. Exceptions have since been abolished, due to the widespread recognition that forcing lawyers to take them was a waste of time.

A hostile witness, otherwise known as an adverse witness or an unfavorable witness, is a witness at trial whose testimony on direct examination is either openly antagonistic or appears to be contrary to the legal position of the party who called the witness.

During direct examination, if the examining attorney who called the witness finds that their testimony is antagonistic or contrary to the legal position of their client, the attorney may request that the judge declare the witness hostile. If the request is granted, the attorney may proceed to ask the witness leading questions. Leading questions either suggest the answer ("You saw my client sign the contract, correct?") or challenge (impeach) the witness' testimony. As a rule, leading questions are generally only allowed during cross-examination, but a hostile witness is an exception to this rule.

In cross-examination conducted by the opposing party's attorney, a witness is presumed to be hostile and the examining attorney is not required to seek the judge's permission before asking leading questions. Attorneys can influence a hostile witness' responses by using Gestalt psychology to influence the way the witness perceives the situation and utility theory to understand his likely responses. The attorney will integrate a hostile witness' expected responses into the larger case strategy through pretrial planning and through adapting as necessary during the course of the trial