A Criminal Action against a defendant shall be considered terminated in favor of the defendant if:

• A. DA elects not to prosecute (prior to filing of accusatory instrument)
• B. All charges are dismissed by the grand jury
• C. Arresting agency elects not to proceed (prior to filing or accusatory instrument)
• D. The defendant is found not guilty after trial

Answer: (C)

At the heart of this is how a criminal action ends before it even gets started. If the arresting or investigating agency decides not to move forward before any accusatory instrument (the formal charging document) is filed, there’s nothing for the court to try. That pre-charge withdrawal terminates the action in the defendant’s favor because no charges have been filed and no case is before the court.

This pre-filing termination is the key scenario: once the decision is made not to proceed before an information or complaint is filed, the action effectively ends with no proceeding in court. The other possibilities involve situations that either require a charge to have been filed and then dismissed or resolved at trial, which are different stages of the process. For example, acquittal after trial ends the case too, but that occurs after a trial has occurred, not at the pre-charge stage described here.