responsibility for all public prosecutions in England and Wales be set up. A White Paper was released in 1983, becoming the Prosecution of Offences Act 1985, which established the Crown Prosecution Service under the direction of the Director of Public Prosecutions, consisting of a merger of his old department with the existing police prosecution departments. It started operating in 1986. The CPS can also prevent a private prosecution from continuing by taking it over and then discontinuing it. The CPS supposedly will do this only where there is not enough evidence to make a proper case, or where a prosecution is against the public interest or could cause an injustice. In reaching this decision, it must balance the public good against a duty to preserve an individual's right to prosecute under the 1985 act. When taking over any private prosecution, the CPS may direct the police to conduct further investigations. The intention of this was to ensure the best available evidence was placed before the court, as further trials were generally excluded until 2003 by the double jeopardy rule. The latter rule was abrogated in certain circumstances of "new and compelling evidence", and for a limited range of the most serious offences such as rape, armed robbery and murder, by the Criminal Justice Act 2003. Recommended by Blunkett, Irvine and Goldsmith, this change is permitted by the optional Article 4 of the Seventh Protocol to the European Convention on Human Rights, although the United Kingdom is not a party to it. Scotland Private prosecutions are rare in Scots law and require special circumstances surrounding the crime to be evident. Leave to prosecute must be obtained by granting of a bill of criminal letters by the High Court of Justiciary. Within the 20th century, only two such applications were made. United States In colonial America, because of Dutch (and possibly French) practice and the expansion of the office of attorney general, public officials came to dominate the prosecution of crimes. However, privately funded prosecutors constituted a significant element of the state criminal justice system throughout the nineteenth century. The right to private prosecution in federal cases was removed following the 1981 Supreme Court decision in Leeke v. Timmerman, affirming an earlier decision in Linda R. S. v. Richard D.. However, a federal prosecutor may appoint a private attorney to prosecute a case. Elsewhere, private prosecution is governed by state laws. Alabama