Chicken & Egg: Do Prosecutor Investigate Crime or Those Who Are Considered Guilty?

I'm pretty sure you're not even in the correct ballpark. The police and law enforcement agencies investigate crimes. Not the prosecutors. Members of the Attorney's General office (and whatever they're called outside of the US) may instruct/direct/command the law enforcement agents and/agency to look at certain individuals; look for certain specific evidence and motivations; etc.... They are not part of the actual investigatory arm of this process.

They come in and take what evidence the law enforcement officials have gathered and build a case out of that.

Have you never watched a SINGLE Law and Order episode? This is literally the damn series' major formula (simplified).

Prosecutors do investigate crimes. Remember Robert Mueller (and Kenneth Star before him).

I don't know what you think you have learned from watching a TV crime serial. But you are wrong about this.

I don't understand the question. I think a prosecutor can choose to launch an investigation under either circumstance. Prosecutors have discretion.

When prosecutors learned that Al Capone was running a criminal gang, they absolutely focused on him as a person. They ended up getting him for tax evasion.

tsarstepan-

Thank you.

I thought that prosecutors (e.g., District Attorneys, Attorney Generals) are supposed to investigate crimes not citizens that they don't like.

The impetus for my question is my noticing cases where a prosecutor does like a particular citizen and so investigates that citizen looking for a crime.

Example: When Letitia James was a candidate for New York State Attorney General, she campaigned on her promise to investigate Trump’s businesses & finances.

I don't like Trump and so I didn't vote for him. However, if I was AG I would start with evidence not my dislike of the man.

I have not watched any Law and Order episode.

Gollum, I would like to hear your feelings about the Al Capone example. Did the prosecutors overstep in that case?

No. I think in response to the Saint Valentine's Day Massacre and other crimes, the IRS and other agencies took action.

They led investigatory teams involving law enforcement agencies with the agents doing the investigations. Not the same thing.

You're claiming that Robert Mueller (and Kenneth Star) did all the footwork of going around interviewing witnesses and collecting evidence and paperwork (thousands of man-hours investigation wise)? Your understanding of bureaucracy and general elementary school time management is terrible.

I think your implication literally violates our universe's laws of physics.

Robert Mueller hired people who worked for him who did the investigation. In fact they were called "Investigators". Yes, he also made use of federal agents. But he also had the people who were working for him investigate.

I don't know what your point is, this argument is kind of silly. But you are factually wrong.

tsarstepan-

I never mentioned Mueller or Star[r].

I cited Letitia James who as a candidate told prospective voters who she intended to "get."

Letita James was elected. If you are going to have prosecutors be elected by voters, then what do you expect? That's how democracy works.

I don't see anything wrong here. If the voters see Trump as a criminal, then a prosecutor saying she is going to investigate him makes sense. It is just like prosecutors focusing on Al Capone or Whitey Bulger.

Your reading skills ain't too strong. Max first brought them up. I was replying to him.


No, you didn't. You need words spoken or written (explicitly written anywhere in this thread to have considered citing that as a source).
1. This is literally the first time the name is mentioned in the thread.
2. You didn't drop any quote anywhere in this thread.
3. You brought zero context to this thread (as in 99% of all your threads here at a2k). Zero links; direct quotes; zero context. Only contextless questions.

And I'm dropping a raw screencapture of the top of this thread before you tag this thread and try to gaslight Letitia James into the discussion (because you're pretty bad/neglient in creating these question threads).