Prosecutor
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A prosecutor, also known as a district attorney or as a state attorney, is the chief legal enforcer official of a community. Their job is to prosecute felonies and serious misdemeanors in the trial courts of general jurisdiction. In the criminal courts, prosecutors are the ones responsible of presenting a case.
The prosecutors act on behalf of a states commonwealth. Therefore, they are the ones who have the power to decide the fate of charges. A prosecutor controls the court system by having the power and the wide discretion to file charges, and to decide what the proper charges should be. Prosecutorial discretion is the driving force in the criminal justice system, because since prosecutor is the dominant factor from the beginning, they decide on which cases to prosecute, whom to prosecute and what other fines and punishments should be imposed. They communicate with police officials as well, and must prove the charges by presenting his case using evidence. Due to the exclusionary rule, prosecutors are sometimes limited, because they may refuse to file charges because of problems such as search seizures, tainted confession or a defective police lineup.
Prosecutors hold more power in the Criminal System because judges have sentencing guidelines and have to give out sentences that fit between them. The prosecution however, gets to pick the crimes and degrees of them . In fact, they are charging criminal with certain charges which in turn affect which guidelines judges get to impose if the person is convicted. Due to sentencing guideline judges now have basically lost all the power they had before and now the act as just mediators and referees in trials. the reason they went to sentencing guidelines was so that judges would not have absolute power and therefore were not able to make arbitrary and capricious judgments. Since now all the power is in the prosecutions hands, if a judge sees a first time offender or someone they really feel is remorseful for their actions, the judge cannot cut them a break or be lenient since the prosecutor basically already determined for how long they have to sentence people for
In the fact, prosecution and not the defense are really the focal point of any trial because it is up to them to prove something to the jury not vice versa . The prosecution has the burden of proof on them, which is to prove that someone’s guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, undisputable evidence. Unless its a civil case and not criminal, then all the proof u need is “a preponderance of the evidence” which basically is that there is enough evidence for a reasonable and or rational person to assert or assume that the person is guilty.
The power of the prosecution is also seen when it comes to plea bargaining, preliminary hearings and grand jury. Prosecution has the upper hand in most trials because very few attorneys actually want cases to go to trial due to the burden