Prosecute

To carry forward, maintain, or wage a judicial proceeding. Prosecution: the act of conducting or waging a proceeding in court; also, the proceeding itself. Prosecutor: one who carries forward, maintains, or wages a judicial proceeding. Prosecutee, the correlative, is not in use. Prosecution, in the sense of a proceeding carried forward, is almost always, prosecutor is generally, and to prosecute is sometimes, spoken specially of criminal proceedings. Prosecution, in the sense of conducting or waging a suit, seems equally applicable to civil and to criminal suits. Prosecution sometimes signifies the party and counsel by whom a criminal proceeding is conducted; as in the expression, no evidence was produced by the prosecution. Prosecution, in the New Jersey law limiting proceedings on sheriffs' bonds, does not mean an action or a suit. It is the following or carrying on of an action or suit already commenced, — as by assessing damages, taking out execution, and levying money for the benefit of one claiming after a judgment had been previously entered for the penalty.

State v. Hardenburgh, 2 N. J. L. 355 (257).

That prosecution includes civil actions, see Holloway v. Turrill, 26 Wend. 383, 399. The word prosecution, in the Pennsylvania limitation act of 1860, is synonymous with indictment.

Commonwealth v. Haas, 57 Pa. St. 443.

Prosecutor, in a statute giving half a penalty to the state and the other half to the prosecutor, should be construed as meaning the informer, or any person who will proceed against the offender, and not restricted to the individual aggrieved by the offence.

Phillips v. Bevans, 23 N. J. L. 373.