Alright guys. I have a friend who was charged with assault. Short story, his GF is really dramatic and we walked around the corner and she was on the ground crying and he was in the back of a cruiser. Well he went to the pre-trial and what not and now has to go to court. Well my GF talks to his ex-GF and she said shes not charging him. Who else can charge him? His court papers say there are a bunch of witness (my GF being one of them) and the rest are from the area it happened. (we were at a concert)

Oh yea, This is Canadian law, but any help is appreciated.

 

I have no idea how they do it in the great white north, but in NY the "people of the state" can charge you with a crime. It usually happens in domestic violence calls (pretty much if there is any kind of issue between male & female partners it is deemed "domestic violence"). Unfortunately, a charge of DV in NY gets you on a special list that will limit you to certain things in NY, like a pistol permit. If you are the male half, you are pretty much screwed, even if you did nothing. So lets say the girls says she doesn't want to file a charge against you, the state can still charge you if they feel it is necessary, like they can tell the girl is to intimidated to do it, or just blinded by feelings.

 

Sorry, not nearly enough info on the incident to give an opinion. I will agree with the post above that state can and will file charges on domestic violence. Not sure if it is the same in Canada, though we both follow the same basic formula for law enforcement.

 

PM sent.

 

Yea I got a good PM from someone and LuvMyTJ cleared it up too. I didnt want to know who was at fault, just if a witness or "state" could. Thanks!

 

the police can charge him and claim the witnesses are too scared to testify... All they need is a few of the onlookers to show up as witnesses and the guys lawyer will try to convince him to plead guilty... then everyone goes home, he gets charged, and witnesses dont have to say anything, just them being there is usually powerful enough to get him convicted.

However, if he says not guilty, then they may call on those witnesses. And if they didnt show up, then it gets tossed out of court.

I say he should plead not guilty and try his luck at the witnesses not showing up. If he didnt do it, then he should have no worries.

I was a witness to a vicious assault years ago. We got subpeona into court a few times, everytime the douchbags lawyer had an excuse to postpone the hearing... so then months later we show up again, same thing, lawyers dog died so its got to be postponed. FINALLY on the 4th time all of us witnesses still showed up and the judge told the lawyer no more excuses... The guy plead guilty and got 3.5 years in jail for assaulting the man working at the liquor store very badly, all we had to do was show up and he knew he was ****ed... He was drunk and went over the counter and broke the mans jaw and stomped his head so bad that the victims ear had to be sewed back on and he lost hearing totally in the ear. All because the jerk was asked for ID...

The jerks plan was to keep putting off the trial in hopes that the witnesses would get sick of taking a day off work to do a good deed and just stop showing up. No witnesses, no conviction. But thats not how my parents raised me, you do the right thing and show up a thousand times if you have to so that the victim can get some kind of retribution for the crime that happened to him. This guy was a known gangster in our city and now hes in jail until next year... But hes probably fighting and getting more time added on.

he got what he deserved.