Who decides to presses charges?

Question

Does only 1 person in a County (LA) decide to press charges? Or is there 1 District Attorney per City? How does this work?

Answer 1

call the district attorney office

Answer 2

The victim or the State can press charges. In some cases the victim may decided to drop the charges against someone and the State still has the option to pick up the charges and pursue them anyway.

Answer 3

The district attorney receives all police reports, reads them and decides if there is enough evidence to indicate that a crime was committed.  The D.A. also decides if they can win the case at trial with the evidence presented.  After answering these two questions, the D.A. will issue charges or reject the case and send it back to the police agency that filed it, asking for more evidence or clarification.

Sometimes the Probation Department gets the case if the person is on probation and the P.O. will decide to ask for more charges or handle the offense as a probation violation.

For juveniles, the Probation Department has the decision to send the case for diversion (ie informal probation, so to speak) or refer it to the DA for issuance of charges.

In Los Angeles County, the LA County D.A. reviews felony cases and makes the decision.  City attorneys for the bigger cities may handle misdemeanors, but it is my understanding that the LA Co. D.A. handles felonies.