Citizen act as prosecutor?

Question

I heard of one case where a guy was able to force the court to allow him to act as prosecutor. This was not a civil case. The county prosecutor would not prosecute the crime so this guy found some obscure law or case law or legal rationale that allowed him to act as prosecutor. It may have been along the lines that the state was entitled to representation and the prosecutor was not representing them so . . .

Does anyone know anything about this?

Answer 1

Sounds highly unlikely.

There would have to be a criminal charge filed by a prosecutor on which the court could act.

Answer 2

I know of provisions in the Federal Water Pollution Control Act of 1972, Section 505(a) which does authorize a private citizen (who thinks that they have been affected by the unlawful discharges of a company) to file a citizen lawsuit against the company if the regulatory agencies fail to take enforcement actions against the company. There are other laws (such as the Emergency Planning and Community Right to Know Act) that have similar provisions for citizen-initiated lawsuits. However, these are all civil proceedings.

At the outset of the 19th century, the prosecutorial system leading to trials in General Sessions courts was at once private-entrepreneurial and publicly administered. The importance of the citizen in crime control in, for instance, New York is traceable to the moral reformation project of mid-18th century England in which reformers contended that the solution to the "crime panic" was that citizens should take responsibility for apprehending offenders and co-operating with magistrates in the suppression of vice and in the execution of the laws against public offending. The concept of citizen-prosecutor can be traced at least as far back as the Athenian democracy in Greece.

I am not aware of the concept being applied in terms of a criminal prosecution in contemporary america.