judicial disgression

We own a rent-to-own company in sw pa.Pa statutes say that we can file (theft of leased or rental property) charges on someone if they refuse to return to us our merchandise for non-payment.In fact,we have filed these charges and won in the recent past in this same county.Now, the DA will not allow us to file these charges.He says that it is at his "Judicial disgression" to allow us to file criminal charges of theft.The law says we can and have done so.My question is,Can we sue the Da and the county for this.We have lost thousands of dollars in rental propert because of this.If a law is on the books,should it not be enforced to be fair to all?

Thanks for the answers

No, you are kind of mixing up two things here. There basically are two different victims here and two different kinds of law.

Situation: Crook rents prpoerty from Honest and takes off with it. Who is the victim? Actually there are two victims here: Honest, and society as a whole.

Now what can the victims do:

Honest can sue Crook in civil court under tort law for his money.
Society employs the district attorney and can charge Crook under criminal law to punish him.

You see the difference here? Civil law is the law that is meant to help you as the victim become "whole" again, to get your money or property back.

Criminal law on the other hand is not there to get the victim the money back, its sole purpose is to punish wrongdoers to deter others.

Therefore since Honest is not the victim under criminal law, Honest has no say if charges are being brought or not. Society as the whole is the victim and they employ the district attorney and give him discretion whom to charge and whom not.

So if the DA declines to charge someone there is nothing you can do against that decision.

What you can and should do is sue the guy who owes you in civil court.

THAT was an excellent reply, for what my opinion is worth. Great job