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Self-Defense In Criminal Cases.

One of the frustrations faced by many businesses is that after the perpetrators of crimes have been identified, the District Attorney's office will not pursue the case. One option is for victims to sue the DA in an attempt to compel him to prosecute, but this would be costly and proving dereliction of duty would be difficult. The DA is effectively immune. Other options are more promising. The law should encourage (and prosecutors' offices should welcome) private preparation of criminal cases. Prosecutors' budgets simply do not allow vigorous prosecution of all the available criminal cases. Logic and evidence show that in private law, plaintiffs win about 50 percent of the cases that are tried. This is because the parties are more likely to settle lopsided cases out of court. Public prosecutors, by contrast, win far more than 50 percent of their trial cases because they have budget constraints and so elect whenever possible to go to court with only the cases they are likely to win. Victims should be allowed to hire private attorneys and other professionals to prepare cases against the accused and thereby extend public prosecutors' resources. The attorneys can be retained pro bono (for the good) or for compensation. This is already done in some white collar cases where financial complexities exceed the prosecutors' expertise, such as complicated embezzlement cases, some oil and gas swindles and cases involving the misapplication of construction trust funds.At present, many cases are never prosecuted for one reason or another. For example, in about 40 percent of federal embezzlement and fraud cases, charges are dropped because of insufficient evidence to convict, given the resources at hand.85 In some instances prosecutors "deputize" attorneys to try cases, too. Many private attorneys have criminal experience as former prosecutors or public defenders. A logical extension of private preparation for trial is the complete privatization of the prosecutor's job by...