Legal Question in Criminal Law in Pennsylvania

Deflation (Last One)

If your friend paid to have charges filed, then this is not criminal, it is civil. If it is civil, then you are right, your friend would not have standing unless he reimbursed the owner for the damage and was seeking to recover what he paid the owner.

Finally, I stand by my answer. If the charge is criminal mischief, the owner does not have to be the complaining witness.

My last question is this...

This all took place on university property. The person who wrote up the charges is a university officer (more or less an elaborate security officer)

My friend had to pay $10 for his university officer to wrote up the charge which had to be approved by the district court judge seeing as the officer in question did not have the legal power to bring the charge himself.

My question is this...

Keeping in mind that the person who paid to have all of this filed against me

Since an officer never brought the charges forth, would this be considered a civil suite?

Thanks very much


Asked on 1/20/08, 6:01 pm

1 Answer from Attorneys
John Gibson John W. Gibson, Esquire

Re: Deflation (Last One)

Interesting. It sounds to me like what you have is not civil. This sounds like a private criminal complaint since it required approval and since $10.00 is a lot less than filing fees in civil matters. But I don't think it would have been the District Justice that approved the Complaint, I think it would have been an Assistant District Attorney.

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Answered on 1/21/08, 9:26 am


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