In civil cases, a retraxit[6] or a motion for voluntary dismissal may be made by a plaintiff instead of a declaration of nolle prosequi, depending upon the custom and rules of a given jurisdiction.
In criminal cases in the United States, it has been held improper for a court to enter an order of nolle prosequi on its own, without a motion by the prosecutor,[7] but as to sentencing discrepancies involved in a sentence recommendation, a trial judge is authorized to reject an underlying guilty plea based upon concerns of fairness and justice or because it is presented after the plea cutoff date.
Rule 48 now mandates that prosecutors seek leave of the court before they dismiss a case via filing a nolle prosequi.
In civil cases, nolle prosequi declarations are made either before the trial begins or before a judgment on the merits is rendered, depending on the rules of the jurisdiction.
[11][12][13][14] In civil cases, a nolle prosequi or voluntary dismissal may be entered as to one of several counts or claims, or as to one of several defendants, or both.
[16] The power of entering a nolle prosequi is now rarely used, mostly in cases where a defendant is permanently physically or mentally unfit to appear in court, or when an ordinary member of the public has brought private criminal proceedings which the Attorney General considers it is not in the public interest to continue.
However, in the Al-Yamamah arms deal, the Director of the Serious Fraud Office was pressured by the Attorney General to terminate an investigation into a claim that BAE Systems had bribed influential persons in Saudi Arabia to secure a profitable defence contract.
[25] This power is quite widely used: 376 cases of rape, about one-quarter of the total of indictments for this offence, were ended by an entry of a nolle prosequi in 2013.
[28] A number of other cases have been brought before the Australian courts, claiming that the reinstatement of charges after entry of a nolle prosequi is an abuse of process in other circumstances.
An attorney-general is the chief law officer both of the Federation of Nigeria and of each Nigerian state, and is also a government minister there.
Under the 1999 Constitution of Nigeria, the federal attorney-general has powers to institute or to take over and continue any criminal proceedings, and to discontinue them at any stage before a final judgement is delivered.
[30] The last power gives statutory authority to the practice of nolle prosequi, which has existed in Nigeria since the colonial era.