Recently, a Saudi Prince who was about to be executed for his crime of murder was given a reprieve when the family of the victim forgave him and cancelled the execution. Apparently, in Saudi Arabia, a criminal defendant can be excused from punishment for their crimes IF the victim, or the family of the victim consent. The US legal system allows no parallel provision it its criminal codes.

Should the victim or the victim's family be allowed to excuse from punishment a criminal defendant or should the government be allowed to proceed even against the wishes of the victim or the victim's family?

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I believe it does already, atleast to a certain degree. You can agree not to press charges against an individual. I think it depends on teh severity of the offence though.

Murder is considered a crime not only against the individual, but against the society as well. So, the DA looks out for the common good. I think that's why you'd not see something like what happened in Saudi Arabia happen in the US.

Besides, I would guess that prince basically paid his way out of prison. He paid off the family so they'd agree to the reprieve.

usually the family will forgive the defendant for a price, if the perpetrator is rich and can pay, it may be better and more reasonable for the victim to take the money instead of seeing the criminal punished.
afaik you have something similar: civil lawsuits. unless a settlement is made for a price, the victim can sue for compensation.

imo this however should not prevent criminal proceedings or else rich people get off the hook much easier for committing crimes.

No way... the convict is sentenced by a jury of his peers and the people are the ones sentencing the person rather than the victim/it's family.
If this were possible, the rich and famous would never go to jail as they can just "buy" themself out of prison. What would one do with someone like Martha Steward or Jeff Skilling, how about Ken Lay? Who would pardon them and allow a reprieve/commute of their sentences (yes i know 2 of the 3 aren't sentenced yet)?

The families now have one way to ask for a commute of death to life imprisonment by speaking out against the death penalty in the punishment phase... It may or may not impact the sentence but you can try... That is as good as it is and should be. After all the judgement is in the name of the people.

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As a practical matter, you are right because in many cases without the victim's testimony and cooperation, the DA in charge will not be able to successfully prosecute the case. In many cases, though, (esp. domestic abuse cases) prosecutors successfully convict an abusive spouse even over the vociferous objection of the other spouse.

Exactly.

Actually, that isn't what happened. The family of the prince specifically demanded that the prince be executed, but right before the sentence was carried out he begged for forgiveness and the victim's family relented. Of course, the victim's family could have been trying to curry favor, but no such allegation was made in the article.

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