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Comment by impossiblefork | Hacker News Reader

Yes, but private prosecutions in Sweden are not civil cases. Civil cases we have, just as you do, and they were very accessible, but private prosecutions are something different.

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I'm not familiar with the Swedish justice system, so it's still a little unclear exactly what you're referring to. But if you mean a true private prosecution [1], these aren't so much "unheard of" in the US as just outright forbidden federally (and in most states). This gets very complicated very quickly though, because each state in the US has its own set of rules, procedures, statutes, constitutions, and court systems for handling justice re: state crimes.

At any rate, sorry for the misinterpretation. To be completely honest, I wasn't even aware that private prosecution was an actual thing, I assumed it was just a mistranslation or colloquialism for a civil tort case.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_prosecution#United_Sta...

Right. A prosecution is about whether somebody committed a crime, the standard required is "Beyond Reasonable Doubt" and the consequence is punishment, for example a fine, prison time or, if you're barbarians, physical punishment such as whipping or execution.

O J wasn't send to jail as a result of the civil lawsuit, he went to jail because he's a crook.

In the US they're called private criminal complaints. For more serious crimes, they usually require the prosecutor's office to approve then handle them. They almost always decline though.

Since it was in quotes I assumed that was a euhemism.

Yeah, I thought they were referring to vigilantism.

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