charged with/in

Hi N2G

I'd say that 'charged with' is used to apply a specific criminal act to a particular person, and 'charged in' is used to refer to a case in which a crime may have been committed.

Yankeein which a crime may have been committed.

Maybe I don't understand your explanation. Why the uncertainty? When there's a case, isn't it for sure that a crime has been committed though it's not known who the criminal is.

They both mean that he's being accused of killing her, although I think technically "charged in her death" can mean that he was just involved somehow but didn't actually personally commit the murder. It's an awkward way to use the preposition, isn't it? But it's very common to read this kind of phrase in a newspaper report. I think it is used when the case is still being investigated.

Thank you, Delmobile! Prepositions always give me headaches but at the same time, when I get it, I feel so satisfied

You're welcome. Yankee, I hadn't read your post while I was composing mine; didn't mean to duplicate. N2G, just because he's charged with, or in, her death doesn't mean a crime has definitely been committed; the death could still turn out to have been accidental.

Delmobile the death could still turn out to have been accidental.

Gosh. What was I thinking. Thanks Delmobile.

Being charged isn't the same as being accused. Sometimes they put it more delicately: "A man is being questioned in connection with the drowning death of his wife." I don't think "case" is a legal term. You can have a case of accidental drowning, and a case of mistaken identity, etc. There might be a case file opened by the police, and there would be a case number for the incident. The case

Help me out if I get the sequence wrong. First, say, a body is found. The police think there could be foul play and categorize it as murder. By suspecting the case a foul play, the charge has been set to murder. Next, the police will look for suspects based on whatever evidence they can find from the crime scene. If they have suspects, they will get arrest warrants and try to arrest them for inves

Sometimes the coroner or medical examiner can be certain that a death was accidental or that foul play was involved, and sometimes the process of identifying the body, tracing events leading up to the death, identifying people who may have been involved - these things may all go hand in hand in "solving" the case. The police may question many "suspects" before deciding that a crime may have

The police wrongly charged him _______ murder