Standing

[RealSkinny]

Nomos Wrote:Isn't a crime by nature "injury?"

Bingo. This is my personal view as well. Standing requires an injury, correct? And all crimes, by nature, are injuries? Then the plaintiff always has standing in a criminal case. If a crime has been perpetrated, then there is an injury based on that fact alone, whether it be murder or drug possession. Commission of a crime is an injury.

This is what I personally believe to be the true reason Standing does not come up in criminal cases. Because the injury requirement is always satisfied. You will never have a crime without injury, so arguing that there is no Standing in a criminal case is pointless. A crime is always an injury. Of course, this is all assuming that the State is the one that receives the injury when one of its laws is broken, because it must be the plaintiff who receives the injury.

Nomos Wrote:What does any of the above have to do with the right to "invoke judicial process?" It seems as though you are assigning attributes that are not of their characteristics. Standing, and corpus delicti are "jurisdictional" requirements. So yes, crimes, torts, breaches of contracts require injury, no argument, but, it doesn't matter (as it relates to our discussion) because without injury (for any of them), as plaintiff, you lose because they all "require" the necessary elements to "have the right to invoke judicial process." Whether it be "the state" or individual.

This is true to an extent. Without an injury, none of those legal concepts are satisfied. The importance of distinction is the fact that, even with an injury, not all of them are satisfied. We might be able to show we were injured, but without a breach of contract we have no basis for raising a breach of contract claim, despite the injury. Similarly, we might have an injury, but without evidence that the plaintiff is the one who received that injury, Standing will not be satisfied. The requirement that the plaintiff be the one who receives the injury is not present in Corpus Delicti. Corpus Delicti is satisfied if we can prove an injury with a criminal agency as the cause, but if we want to satisfy Standing requirements, we need to take the extra step and prove that it was the plaintiff who received that injury. This is why, despite the similarities between the two, we cannot say they are the same, or substitute one for the other.

Nomos Wrote:Then there's the real party in interest. If the state predicates all of its acts to be on behalf of its citizens, and THE STATE defines citizen as "one who owes allegiance in return for protection," but then hold that there is "no duty to protect," then who is "the state" acting on behalf of? Can't be the citizen. If they're not acting on behalf of "the citizen" then what gives agents of "the state" the right to invoke judicial process?

We need to clarify the whole "duty to protect" thing a bit. When the State says "in return for protection", they mean the protection of the laws of the state. The State only has a duty to protect where the law creates a duty. If we had a State where the citizens decided they didn't care about murder and decided to make it legal, the State has no duty to prosecute individuals for committing murder or to protect people from being murdered. Murder is not illegal, so what duty could we possibly say the State has to prevent it?

I think the whole "no duty to protect" has been taken far beyond it's true meaning. Most of those cases I read, the court is not saying that the state has no duty to protect ever, but rather, they have no duty to protect in that specific instance. I believe all states are required by federal law to protect against discrimination caused by federal agencies. In other words, if you go to the DMV and they discriminate against you, you can sue for damages because the State had a duty created by law. If the citizens of a State wanted to, they could create a law that would require the police force to pay restitutions to every murder victim. Once they do this, the State absolutely will have a duty to protect.

When the courts say citizens are those who owe allegiance in exchange for protections, they're talking about things like police protection, fire protection, and access to schools and other public institutions.