recognizing district attorney not obligated to bring private criminal complaint simply because facts recited in complaint make out prima facie case, and may exercise sound discretion to refrain from prosecution in good faith belief that prosecution would not serve best interests of state
How later courts described this case
- recognizing district attorney not obligated to bring private criminal complaint simply because facts recited in complaint make out prima facie case, and may exercise sound discretion to refrain from prosecution in good faith belief that prosecution would not serve best interests of state
- explaining that a trial court abuses its discretion when, “without a legitimate basis in the record,” it “substitute[s] its own judgment for that of the district attorney.”
- stating, “the appellate court will review the trial court’s decision for an abuse of discretion, in keeping with settled principles of appellate review of discretionary matters.”
- indicating that the district attorney’s disapproval of a private complaint based on its determination that a conviction is unlikely constitutes a policy reason for that disapproval
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
KLEIN, J.,
Concurring:
¶ 1 I join in the decision and analysis of the majority. I write separately to note that I agree with the dissent that sometimes it will be the obligation of this Court to review the entire record to determine whether the prosecutor abused his or her discretion in refusing to bring a private criminal complaint. In some circumstances it will be necessary for this Court to conduct an in camera review of all the documents reviewed by the prosecutor and the trial court to make that determination. In this case, however, I agree with the majority that we can make the determination without seeing all the documents. The known facts and stated rationale of the prosecutor justify the decision to deny prosecution.
¶ 2 As was pointed out in the thorough and scholarly opinion by the majority, the trial court must defer to the district attorney’s decision to refuse prosecution and the private criminal complainant has a heavy burden to show an abuse of discretion.
¶ 3 In this case, the alleged victim started the episode by shooting an innocent pedestrian with the powerful stream of a “Super Soaker,” and where there was no fum evidence of any serious injury, there was a question as to whether the victim suffered a broken nose. As is obvious, the complainant picked the wrong victim. It is clear that the District Attorney did not make a snap judgment, but reviewed the entire case thoroughly. Even without reviewing all those documents ourselves, since the victim started the incident and suffered no major injuries, we can determine that it would be very difficult to get a conviction. It was not an abuse of discretion for the prosecutor to refuse to commit what would likely be significant resources on a losing case. Likewise, the victim does have the remedy of a civil action, possibly a federal section 1983 action. 12 Therefore, based on what we know, there was no abuse of discretion.
¶ 4 It might be optimum to review all the documents upon which the District Attorney relied. While I agree with the dissent that in some cases it will be necessary to review all that the trial judge saw, I agree with the majority that this is not one of those cases.
. 42 U.S.C. § 1983 .