Yes, that's exactly what happened.
Lesson: report the crime to the police first. If you want to show compassion and keep the law out of your business, you can always refuse to cooperate with the investigation later, and they'll be obliged to drop the charges. But the perpetrator will know that they'll be at the top of the list if anything happens to you.
Instead, just tell your friends and family.
I anal but isn’t that a pretty slippery slope? Like someone rapes me or tries to kill me and the law will throw me in prison for refusing to relive those moments?
Also I’m pretty sure jstor didn’t want to press charges but the overzealous prosecutors did horrible things to Aaron Swartz anyways.
Yes, judges and lawyers for both parties in a case can legally compel witnesses to show up and testify, but doing so tends to damage the credibility of the witness, which can be fatal for their testimony.
Its also used to hold political prisoners the government doesn't like in order to punish them.
The district attorney for New Orleans, Leon Cannizzaro, has come under fire for not only issuing "fake subpoenas" that threaten jail time, he's actually arrested the victims and kept them incarcerated until trial in some cases.
He's still DA there, somehow.
It gives judges and prosecutors a lot of leeway in how they handle cases.
Consider this situation: Alan assaults his partner Beth. He is reported by a neighbour, and Beth cooperates.
But Alan is an abuser who knows all of the tricks for exerting mental, emotional, and physical control over Beth. He convinces her to say nothing in court.
Some people argue—correctly—that threatening Beth with consequences for failing toi testify truthfully about the events she recounted to police when questioned is hurting the victim.
Others argue—also correctly—that without being able to compel victims like Alice to follow-through with the prosecution, we enable and even encourage domestic abusers to witness-tamper.
I don’t know that there is one easy works-in-all-circumstances approach.
> just tell your friends and family
But then the dangerous person won't know that they know?
Or one would tell him "btw I've told my partner and parents about this"? -- hmm I'd be worried I then created risk for them
This is completly false at least in the US where this story is happening. You don't decide to press or not to press charges. The presecution can decide to go ahead or not, no matter if you cooperate or not and no matter what you desire, they have no obligation whatsoever.
I hope we still live in a world where "have fallback measures in case other people are going to murder you" doesn't need to be at the top of our contingency planning. Obviously it was here, and that's tragic, but I think and hope that most of us shouldn't need to learn to anticipate this as a likely, or even plausible, response.
I worked at a Lebanese company in London and a lot of directors had the special versions of their cars, the ones with runflat tires and up armoured.
I recall we had someone kidnaped in Beirut and they got him back quickly.
Why do they need those cars in London?
(HNW = High-net-worth individual, I didn't know)
Sure, if you only consider murder, then it's unlikely (in America at least). But this same pattern happens for lesser things. Someone hits your car, and says "can we just settle this privately, I don't want my premium to go up", and you agree out of kindness, and a few days later you get a letter saying that they're making a claim against your insurance. You've missed your chance to get yourself on record as the victim.
In this case, or similar cases, the guy might have done other things like accuse him of blackmail, or accuse him of being involved in the crime etc.
Notwithstanding the risk of being compelled to testify, I would still take the route I mentioned above (report it but refuse to cooperate any further). I'd be surprised if the prosecutor decided to press ahead and grant you immunity to make you testify if you're not willing. You could retract your statement, which would signify that they cannot predict what you'll say at trial. Much more likely they'd just drop the case if the victim is unwilling...but I'm not a lawyer, I could be wrong.
No this has happened to me and I won ultimately anyway. In California they ask people to immediately get out of the road if they can (i.e. move their cars), and generally deal with it privately if it's under some dollar amount. All states have some variant of this.
If the person then comes after you it will be decided between the insurance companies who directly investigate the car and take statements. In my case I explained what happened and pointed out how the scratches/dents/etc supported it.
As for playing games with the police, filing a false police report is a crime so be very careful about changing your official statements with them. I'd say talk to a lawyer to advise you on exactly what to say, of perhaps even have them deal directly to get you out of it.
The police are just men with guns that anybody can call. They're only really useful in any other situation where men with guns are useful, like breaking up a brawl.
When people retaliate against victims for reporting them, it's generally because there's a long game that they're concerned about. It could be an organized crime outfit that's concerned about it's future, it's reputation etc. Or an abusive partner who expects to be able to continue the abuse long term, so they want to "nip it in the bud" when someone talks to the police. So even though they may get in more trouble for the retaliation, they think it's worth it in the long term. The victims in these cases are usually captive in some sense.
Imo, generally when you're the victim of an unexpected crime, you're safer reporting to the authorities than you would be keeping quiet about it.
I wish we had an option for restorative justice. This is exactly what the victim would have wanted.