Law Enforcement Role In the Prosecution of a Los Angeles Criminal Case
The main role that the police play in a criminal case in Los Angeles courts is that they are usually most impactful and powerful when it comes to investigating cases because the prosecutors have not been involved yet.
So, it's up to the police in Los Angeles County to ferret out crime, arrest people, get them into court, and file the paperwork so the prosecutors can review it and decide whether to file criminal charges.
Now, there are exceptions to this rule. I've seen cases where prosecutors get involved early with the police – in sex crime cases, murder cases, and other cases that are more complicated where an attorney's brain is going to be necessary to properly try to investigate the case so it can be filed successfully and prosecuted in a jury trial if required, so that's when the prosecutors might get involved as far as pre-filing of a criminal case at the investigative state.
Police Have Limited Power After Criminal Case is Filed
Once the case is filed, though, the police have limited power. Now, the prosecutors, who are attorneys, decide exactly what charges will be filed.
Sometimes, the police get a case. They book somebody for a bunch of charges. The prosecutors look at it and say, we can't prove some of these charges. We're not filing them. Or, I've seen the opposite happen.
The police booked somebody for something, and the police were nice and didn't book them for anything bad.
I had a case the other day where a guy got booked for assault with a deadly weapon. He ran somebody over with his car. The prosecutors looked at that and the witness statements.
There were no charges for assault with a deadly weapon. He's getting attempted with attempted murder. He tried to kill the guy. That's not a good situation.
So, the police sometimes get it right, and again, they have limited power once the case hits the courtroom because the prosecutors will call the shots.
Police Detective Investigations of Criminal Cases
Prosecutors tell detectives what to do and what to investigate in a criminal case because, again, they're the brains of the operation—they've gone to law school.
They know what it takes to prove a criminal case, how to win it, what evidence they need, what objections will be made, what rulings a judge might make, and what evidence the police will need to gather to prosecute a criminal case.
So, the police are usually not used at all in a criminal case once it's filed. However, they may be called as witnesses if there is a trial or a preliminary hearing to testify to what they saw, what witnesses told them, and what evidence they collected.
Probably the most useful law enforcement figure once a case is filed is the lead detective on a felony case. That person is in charge of all the evidence, helps the DA get familiar with the evidence, assists the DA during a preliminary hearing or trial, turns over evidence, gets videotape evidence if there's evidence that's out there, goes to do follow-up interviews with witnesses if necessary, goes to find other evidence or goes to find other witnesses.
Police Work Closely With Prosecutors in Criminal Cases
At that point, the DA and the detective work hand-in-hand to try to prosecute somebody in a federal case, and it's the same thing in a misdemeanor case. The City Attorney and the police also work hand-in-hand.
That's why whenever you see a case filed against a defendant, and the police officers are victims, the prosecutors are much tougher on those cases because they deal with the police all the time.
So, the police are very important in the criminal system, but they're more important and have more influence in the investigative phase before charges are filed.
Once charges are filed, the police lose a lot of power, and the power is in the hands of the prosecutors to decide what plea bargains to offer, what charges to file, whether the person is going to jail or prison, what witnesses to call, and what evidence to look for.
So, the prosecutors and the police do work hand-in-hand in these criminal cases, but ultimately, the prosecutors have the final say once they take charge of a criminal case in Los Angeles.
