Sorry, sometimes I fumble the terms in English. What I meant was that the State may (or may not) prosecute the case, regardless of the wishes of the victim.

I suppose it's the State who "presses charges" in this case, but I believed that term was only used for the victim(s).

If you commit a murder, the victim is dead and can't raise charges. You can still be prosecuted.

Although I think that's an excellent example of a reason for the state to press charges, I think it's rather obvious that's a different matter. I would imagine one could argue that the victim in the case is potentially the state itself.

I'm thinking more along the lines that there is a clear cut victim of the alleged crime that refuses to file charges and the state does it in their stead. It would seem that the lack of charges from the alleged victim is the first defense of the accused, even the victim disagrees with the state.

Of course, if the victim claims the crime didn't happen, it obviously makes it harder to prove it did, and the prosecutor will take that into account when deciding if the case should be brought to trial.

But there are important reasons why one wouldn't press charges despite having suffered the crime; a few of the obvious ones include fear of retaliation, being unwilling to be in the presence of the perpetrator(s), lying to protect them, etc. And despite that refusal, there still may there be enough evidence to prove it happened.

Sure, if there is evidence beyond the victim then I can see the case moving forward. But I'm deliberately speaking of situations where often the only evidence is from the victim, which is often common with rape cases. Which is what started the whole thread and my initial question. It's just that I keep getting hypothetical cases outside that original context.