How Does The Prosecution Decide To File Charges?

Orlando Criminal Defense Attorney and former prosecutor Bradford Fisher, explains the process used by the Florida Prosecutor's office to determine whether or not they will pursue charges against an individual after an arrest.

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--Transcript--

Some of it's what evidence do they have, how solid is the case. Some of it is even if there is legally a crime, is the case stupid? Do they have other reasons for not wanting to pursue it? For example, sometimes they will not pursue something if it makes the police look bad because of the way they've handled it. There's some politics involved. If it involves guns, they're more likely to go forward. The level of the charges can fluctuate a great deal. Weaker cases generally get lower level charges. Stronger cases get higher level charges. Mostly, they're supposed to take sworn statements of witnesses that actually saw what happened and then use those, and if there's a criminal charge there, they go forward on it, but every prosecutor and state attorney has different judgment as to whether or not there's enough evidence or not and how it gets charged.

[ClaireJordan-ddpc]

Is the case dtupid? OMG.... If this is really the criteria.

[franciscorodriguez]

Is it possible to get a death investigation switched to another county in Washington?

[LG-wvxb]

Most of it is based on selectively enforced laws.

[KevinBlackmore-rdxu]

Unless the feds initiate a case against you, or are actively investigating you, your case begins with a state prosecution. The Feds don’t magically become aware of one’s arrest, they are ‘invited’ into your case. For example ( this is a typical) the local police find a gun you shouldn’t have during a traffic stop and you are arrested. The arresting officers submit a police report to the county prosecutor describing how they came to arrest you and why. Upon reading that police report the prosecutor becomes aware the officers discovered the gun thru a search that lacked probable cause/warrant, that prosecutor will see it’s now a weak case likely to suppressed at some point so they will call (invite) the ATF aka the Feds and offer the case to them. This is because it is well known that Federal law is essentially a joke so a case that would have been surpressed in state court will likely stand firm in Federal court. This is how many cases go federal especially low level drug or gun cases