Talk:Nolle prosequi

Objection! Contradiction!
The article gives to very different and highly conflicting statements:
 * In most circumstances, the court with jurisdiction to hear the case must adjudicate on the application for nolle prosequi, thus finding the defendant innocent of all charges

and
 * Courts seldom adjudicate on the application for nolle prosequi. Instead, courts typically sign an order prepared by the prosecution or make a docket entry reflecting the case has been "nolle pros'ed."

Only one of those could possibly correct. I strongly suspect it is the later. Especially as the first statement contradicts the later statement that the case is not adjudicated on the merits, so it does not prevent the case from being re-introduced later. However, if that was the case, the charges then are merely dropped, not the court ruling the defendant innocent. Somebody fix this. 66.254.241.199 (talk) 03:59, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Pronunciation
Someone should put in how to pronounce it correctly (and maybe how people actually tend to pronounce it). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.54.110.112 (talk) 18:55, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Done. Someone may wish to check the classical Latin transcription. The English one is generic as per WP:IPA for English, and does not necessarily represent the precise realization in any dialect.--Che Gannarelli (talk) 17:07, 17 April 2009 (UTC)
 * It was nice of you to reply to the request, but the classical Latin pronunciation is entirely irrelevant (it's early modern English legal Latin) and the source has been entirely misrepresented. The provided pronunciation isn't "generic": it's only one of the possible British pronunciations and the source gives five others. Merriam-Webster provides a seventh. As it stands, this might be a time to ignore since the term is a little unusual for English (the terminal -e is always pronounced somehow), but the dictionaries establish that basically any pronunciation English speakers would come up for it (apart from "noll" or "knoll") works and there's no justification for pretending this particular British pronunciation is the "correct" one.


 * If we were to include all 6–7 pronunciations, they'd need to go into an efn and noteslist footnote. Personally think we're better off just leaving the mess to the Wiktionary entry, though. — Llywelyn II   14:24, 17 September 2019 (UTC)

Nolle Prosequi is not the same as a Not Guilty Verdict
In English common law: "nolle prosequi" merely means that the (public) prosecutor is unwilling to continue with the prosecution; it doesn't disbar continuation of the case at a later date, if the (public) prosecutor so wishes.


 * This is incorrect. If the Attorney General issues a nolle prosequi, no-one may prosecute the charges. That is the point, and is completely different from a discontinuation of the prosecution. Lawdroid (talk) 16:00, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

This means that: anyone in respect of whom a "nolle prosequi" is offered is most certainly NOT found "not guilty" and therefore cannot plead "autreufois acquit" in respect of the relevant offence at any subsequent resumption.

JJ [Sorry I'll login next time] —Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.152.163.200 (talk) 14:11, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Dropping charge(s)
In the United States, I have rarely heard the phrase "Nolle prosequi", and then only at the initial point when a prosecutor decides whether or not to prosecute, although I have little experience with criminal law. However, I have heard a phrase such as "dropping the charges" quite often, which means although a prosecutor did once charge a defendant, the prosecutor decides not to pursue the charges any further, which seems very similar or the equivalent of Nolle prosequi here. I have not found an article on Dropping charge yet in the English Wikipedia. Should the phrase "dropping the charge(s)" be mentioned as a "synonym" phrase in this article? Should there be a redirect? H Padleckas (talk) 23:40, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

Criminal charge redirects to Indictment. H Padleckas (talk) 00:03, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

Judge's assent required (in the US)
And once the trial has started, with the defendant's assent. Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure 48(a) ( Martin |  talk • contribs 08:49, 6 August 2009 (UTC))

To add to the notable cases list. Scopes V. State (of Tennessee; 289 S.W. 363, 367; Tenn 1927). The Tennessee State Supreme Court suggested that, in its referral of the case back to the lower court, that the lower court enter as nolle prosequi it's case against John Scopes (defended by Clarence Darrow), noting that "we see nothing to be gained by prolonging the life of this bizarre case." Scopes was found guilty by the lower court of violating the evolution teaching law, but the TSSC found that the fine was imposed improperly, and referred it back to the lower court for readujication —Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.127.130.29 (talk) 15:38, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Dr John Bodkin Adams
This section gives a misleading impression of the Adams case.

Firstly, Adams was indicted on two charges of murder, but only tried on one, the Morrell case. The trial judge, Mr Justice Devlin said that the Attorney-General went beyond what was then the normal practice of filing only a single murder indictment (on the principle someone guilty of a capital crime can only be hung once) in filing two separate murder indictments. His apparent aim was to see Adams hang, despite the limitations of the Homicide Act 1957 (which came into force during the course of the trial) on capital punishment. This act made it likely that Adams would be reprieved if found guilty of a single murder committed before the passing of the act, but might not be reprieved if found guilty of two earlier murders following a common pattern.

Secondly, the article incorrectly quotes Devlin, who said the Attorney-General's action was "an abuse of process", not an abuse of power. Additionally, by not stating Devlin's reason for calling this action an abuse, it fails to make clear that the Attorney-General allowed Adams to remain under suspicion when he should have allowed a not guilty verdict on the second case.

Devlin said:

"The use of nolle prosequi to conceal the deficiencies of the prosection was an abuse of process, which left an innocent man under the suspicion that there might have been something in the talk of mass murder after all".

Devlin added that Manningham-Buller used nolle prosequi so that there would not have been a second acquittal and he would not have lost both cases he had prosecuted. The Attorney-General himself told parliament after the trial that the publicity which attended the Morrell trial would make it difficult to secure a fair trial on the second indictment (the Hullett case) and that the second case depended very greatly on inference not supported by admissions.

Thirdly, it says that the Hullett charge was deemed to be the stronger of the two cases, but was not so deemed by Lord Devlin, who read the case papers and depositions in preparation for a possible trial, saw how weak the case was and that an acquittal in Morrell (which had not then been decided) would make an acquittal in the Hullett case virtually certain. It may have been the opinion of Superintendent Hannam, but he was responsible neither for the prosecution nor the conduct of the trial.

Fourthly, Superintendent Hannam or members of his team are responsible for claims of political interference. This includes suggestions, promoted by authors who accept Hannam's views, that Manningham-Buller deliberately sabotaged the prosecution so that Adams would not be hung. This seems questionable, as Devlin records Manningham-Buller's manipulating the trial process so it was more likely that Adams would hang, if found guilty on both counts. A simpler method of saving Adams from hanging would have been what Devlin says the Lord Chief justice considered appropriate: a single indictment and trial, giving the prosecution one chance only to secure a conviction in addition, the criticism Manningham-Buller received in the aftermath of the trial may have contributed to the failure of his ambition to become Lord Chief Justice in 1958. From what Devlin says about Manningham-Buller, it seems unlikely he would allow the life of someone he considered guilty to stand in the way of his ambition.

Much has been made by such authors of the apparent police loss of the nurses' notebooks, which the defence had and used to refute the nurses' police statements. Devlin delicately hints that Hannam may have assisted the nurses in preparing these statements, which were greatly at variance with the content of the diaries, and it seems improbable that this embarrassment would have occured, if the police ever had the diaries and had examined their contents. Devlin suggests that the diaries had been found by the defence, who conducted a more thorough search of Adam's surgery than the police had. Neither issue reflects well on the police investigation, and suggests police failings harmed the prosecution. This seems more credible than Hannam shifting the blame to Manningham-Buller.

This account relies almost entirely on Devlin's account, but he was an experienced lawyer with almost 30 years' experience at the time of the trial, nine years as a judge, and he had ample time to reflect before writing Easing the Passing. Hannam appears to have been a devotee of the The Police Infallibility Principle, that if someone is acquitted of a serious crime, the courts, not the police got it wrong. In view of his lack of legal experience, his views are of little account in discussing nolle prosequi Sscoulsdon (talk) 16:10, 12 August 2017 (UTC)

vs. Motion to dismiss
The relationship between nolle prosequi and "motion to dismiss" is unclear. Is this a procedural difference, or just a terminological difference? Do some jurisdictions admit of both, making some distinction? Does the requirement that the judge approve depend on whether it's nolle/motion, or is that a different issue? --Macrakis (talk) 17:33, 13 September 2019 (UTC)