> Saleh showed compassion and that may have been a reason why he ended up dying in the end.
Yes, that's exactly what happened.
Lesson: report the crime to the police first. If you want to show compassion and keep the law out of your business, you can always refuse to cooperate with the investigation later, and they'll be obliged to drop the charges. But the perpetrator will know that they'll be at the top of the list if anything happens to you.
You can be held in contempt and face jail time for not participating in an investigation. The fifth only applies to self incrimiation, not to incriminating others.
> You can be held in contempt and face jail time for not participating in an investigation.
I anal but isn’t that a pretty slippery slope? Like someone rapes me or tries to kill me and the law will throw me in prison for refusing to relive those moments?
Also I’m pretty sure jstor didn’t want to press charges but the overzealous prosecutors did horrible things to Aaron Swartz anyways.
The district attorney for New Orleans, Leon Cannizzaro, has come under fire for not only issuing "fake subpoenas" that threaten jail time, he's actually arrested the victims and kept them incarcerated until trial in some cases.
It's important to note that the state of Louisiana uses a completely different system of law than the rest of the United States, based off the French civil code.
It gives judges and prosecutors a lot of leeway in how they handle cases.
Consider this situation: Alan assaults his partner Beth. He is reported by a neighbour, and Beth cooperates.
But Alan is an abuser who knows all of the tricks for exerting mental, emotional, and physical control over Beth. He convinces her to say nothing in court.
Some people argue—correctly—that threatening Beth with consequences for failing toi testify truthfully about the events she recounted to police when questioned is hurting the victim.
Others argue—also correctly—that without being able to compel victims like Alice to follow-through with the prosecution, we enable and even encourage domestic abusers to witness-tamper.
I don’t know that there is one easy works-in-all-circumstances approach.
Yes that is exactly the case. Often judges do order witnesses who express reluctance to testify into custody so that they can be sure that they will show up for the trial.
This is extremely rare in the US judicial system, and prosectors tend not to like take cases where the victim or a key witness is no longer willing to testify.
Yes, judges and lawyers for both parties in a case can legally compel witnesses to show up and testify, but doing so tends to damage the credibility of the witness, which can be fatal for their testimony.
> you can always refuse to cooperate with the investigation later, and they'll be obliged to drop the charges
This is completly false at least in the US where this story is happening. You don't decide to press or not to press charges. The presecution can decide to go ahead or not, no matter if you cooperate or not and no matter what you desire, they have no obligation whatsoever.
This is true but in a case where the bulk of the evidence is the victim's testimony, if the victim doesn't cooperate, the state will focus prosecution efforts on cases they have a better chance of winning
> Lesson: report the crime to the police first. If you want to show compassion and keep the law out of your business, you can always refuse to cooperate with the investigation later, and they'll be obliged to drop the charges. But the perpetrator will know that they'll be at the top of the list if anything happens to you.
I hope we still live in a world where "have fallback measures in case other people are going to murder you" doesn't need to be at the top of our contingency planning. Obviously it was here, and that's tragic, but I think and hope that most of us shouldn't need to learn to anticipate this as a likely, or even plausible, response.
> I hope we still live in a world where "have fallback measures in case other people are going to murder you" doesn't need to be at the top of our contingency planning. Obviously it was here, and that's tragic, but I think and hope that most of us shouldn't need to learn to anticipate this as a likely, or even plausible, response.
Sure, if you only consider murder, then it's unlikely (in America at least). But this same pattern happens for lesser things. Someone hits your car, and says "can we just settle this privately, I don't want my premium to go up", and you agree out of kindness, and a few days later you get a letter saying that they're making a claim against your insurance. You've missed your chance to get yourself on record as the victim.
In this case, or similar cases, the guy might have done other things like accuse him of blackmail, or accuse him of being involved in the crime etc.
Notwithstanding the risk of being compelled to testify, I would still take the route I mentioned above (report it but refuse to cooperate any further). I'd be surprised if the prosecutor decided to press ahead and grant you immunity to make you testify if you're not willing. You could retract your statement, which would signify that they cannot predict what you'll say at trial. Much more likely they'd just drop the case if the victim is unwilling...but I'm not a lawyer, I could be wrong.
> Someone hits your car, and says "can we just settle this privately, I don't want my premium to go up", and you agree out of kindness, and a few days later you get a letter saying that they're making a claim against your insurance. You've missed your chance to get yourself on record as the victim.
No this has happened to me and I won ultimately anyway. In California they ask people to immediately get out of the road if they can (i.e. move their cars), and generally deal with it privately if it's under some dollar amount. All states have some variant of this.
If the person then comes after you it will be decided between the insurance companies who directly investigate the car and take statements. In my case I explained what happened and pointed out how the scratches/dents/etc supported it.
As for playing games with the police, filing a false police report is a crime so be very careful about changing your official statements with them. I'd say talk to a lawyer to advise you on exactly what to say, of perhaps even have them deal directly to get you out of it.
FWIW This happened to me in South Carolina. It did not work out in my favor. Someone backed into my car and the next day filed a claim saying I hit her. The insurance companies sided with her...
It's not like a white collar criminal who embezzled money wouldn't be out on bail. Considering the level of detail that didn't go into planning this murder I don't think involving the police would have afforded the victim any extra protection.
The police are just men with guns that anybody can call. They're only really useful in any other situation where men with guns are useful, like breaking up a brawl.
They're men with guns and notebooks. Which makes them much more useful than men with guns in creating a paper trail. If the suspect had known he'd been reported to the police, he probably would have guessed he'd be the cops first interview when his boss turned up dead.
Well how would that have helped the perpetrator? He'd be the first person the police would look at. In most cases, retaliating for this kind of thing is not the rational thing to do. That doesn't mean it won't happen, but it's unlikely.
When people retaliate against victims for reporting them, it's generally because there's a long game that they're concerned about. It could be an organized crime outfit that's concerned about it's future, it's reputation etc. Or an abusive partner who expects to be able to continue the abuse long term, so they want to "nip it in the bud" when someone talks to the police. So even though they may get in more trouble for the retaliation, they think it's worth it in the long term. The victims in these cases are usually captive in some sense.
Imo, generally when you're the victim of an unexpected crime, you're safer reporting to the authorities than you would be keeping quiet about it.
Yes, that's exactly what happened.
Lesson: report the crime to the police first. If you want to show compassion and keep the law out of your business, you can always refuse to cooperate with the investigation later, and they'll be obliged to drop the charges. But the perpetrator will know that they'll be at the top of the list if anything happens to you.