Editing Prosecutor (section)

==Private prosecution==
{{main|Private prosecution}}

In the early history of England, victims of a crime and their family had the right to hire a private attorney to prosecute criminal charges against the person alleged to have injured the victim.<ref name=Nichols>{{citation|volume=13|publisher=Cap. Def. J.|issue=279|date=2000–2001|title=No One Can Serve Two Masters: Arguments against Private Prosecutors|author=Nichols, Matthew S.|url=http://heinonlinebackup.com/hol-cgi-bin/get_pdf.cgi?handle=hein.journals/hjlpp9&section=38|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120401074301/http://heinonlinebackup.com/hol-cgi-bin/get_pdf.cgi?handle=hein.journals%2Fhjlpp9&section=38|archive-date=1 April 2012}}</ref> In the 18th century, prosecution of almost all criminal offences in England was private, usually by the victim.<ref>{{citation|volume=2|publisher=U. Chi. L. Sch. Roundtable|page=475|year=1995|title=Making Sense of English Law Enforcement in the Eighteenth Century|author=Friedman, David D.|url=http://heinonlinebackup.com/hol-cgi-bin/get_pdf.cgi?handle=hein.journals/ucroun2&section=23|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120401074315/http://heinonlinebackup.com/hol-cgi-bin/get_pdf.cgi?handle=hein.journals%2Fucroun2&section=23|archive-date=1 April 2012}}</ref> In [[Colonial America]], because of Dutch and possibly French practice and the expansion of the office of [[attorney general]], public officials came to dominate the prosecution of crimes; however, privately funded prosecutors constituted a significant element of the state criminal justice system throughout the nineteenth century.<ref>{{cite journal|title=Privately Funded Prosecution of Crime in the Nineteenth-Century United States|author=Robert M. Ireland|journal=The American Journal of Legal History|volume=39|number=1|date=Jan 1995|pages=43–58|publisher=Temple University|jstor=845749|doi=10.2307/845749}}</ref> The use of a private prosecutor was incorporated into the common law of [[Virginia]] but is no longer permitted there.<ref name=Nichols/> Private prosecutors were also used in North Carolina as late as 1975.<ref>{{citation|volume=25|publisher=Am. U. L. Rev.|page=754|date=1975–1976|title=Outmoded Concept of Private Prosecution, The|author=Sidman, Andrew}}</ref> Private prosecution has been used in Nigeria, although the practice is being phased out.<ref>{{cite journal|title=Private Prosecution in Nigeria: Recent Developments and Some Proposals|last=Okagbue|first=Isabella|journal=[[Journal of African Law]]|volume=34|number=1|date=Spring 1990|pages=53–66|publisher=Cambridge University Press on behalf of the School of Oriental and African Studies|jstor=745600|doi=10.1017/s0021855300008196|s2cid=145695321 }}.</ref>