In a criminal case, the state, through a prosecutor, initiates the suit, while in a civil case the victim brings the suit. Persons convicted of a crime may be incarcerated, fined, or both. Criminal defense attorneys represent clients who have been accused of committing a crime, and defend their rights at each stage of a misdemeanor or felony case -- from an arrest to an appeal after conviction. Criminal defense attorneys may be hired privately or provided by the government (called "public defenders").
Union is a city in and the county seat of Union County, South Carolina, United States. The population was 8,793 at the 2000 census. It is the principal city of the Union Micropolitan Statistical Area (population 29,881 according to year 2000 estimates by the U.S. Census Bureau), an (MSA) which includes all of Union County and which is further included in the greater Greenville-Spartanburg-Anderson, South Carolina Combined Statistical Area (population 1,185,534 according to year 2005 U.S. Census Bureau estimates). Both Union and Union County received their names from the old Union Church that stood a short distance from the Monarch Mill. When it was first founded, Union was known as Unionville; later it was shortened to Union. The county’s first white settlers came from Virginia in 1749. Union County’s population grew the fastest between 1762 and the start of the Revolutionary War. Settlers built log cabins and cultivated tobacco, flax, corn and wheat. Union was one of the first towns settled in the area and was untouched during the Civil War because the Broad River flooded and turned Sherman’s troops away from the town. Union is also the home of Boogaloo Folk Life Productions, an annual community effort wherein recollections of historical events are collected by local residents and presented in a play. The county's Carnegie Library was named Best Small Library in America by Library Journal for 2009.