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Alford Plea
In United States law, an Alford plea, also called a Kennedy plea in West Virginia, an Alford guilty plea, and the Alford doctrine, is a guilty plea in criminal court, whereby a defendant in a criminal case does not admit to the criminal act and asserts innocence, but accepts imposition of a sentence. This plea is allowed even if the evidence to be presented by the prosecution would be likely to persuade a judge or jury to find the defendant guilty beyond reasonable doubt. This can be caused by circumstantial evidence and testimony favoring the prosecution, and difficulty finding evidence and witnesses that would aid the defense. Alford pleas are permissible in all U.S. federal and state courts except Indiana, Michigan, and New Jersey. They are not permitted in United States military courts. Origin The ''Alford'' guilty plea is named after the United States Supreme Court case of '' North Carolina v. Alford'' (1970). Henry Alford had been indicted on a charge of fir ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Law Of The United States
The law of the United States comprises many levels of Codification (law), codified and uncodified forms of law, of which the supreme law is the nation's Constitution of the United States, Constitution, which prescribes the foundation of the federal government of the United States, federal government of the United States, as well as various civil liberties. The Constitution sets out the boundaries of federal law, which consists of Act of Congress, Acts of Congress, treaty, treaties ratified by the United States Senate, Senate, regulations promulgated by the executive branch, and case law originating from the United States federal courts, federal judiciary. The United States Code is the official compilation and Codification (law), codification of general and permanent federal statutory law. The Constitution provides that it, as well as federal laws and treaties that are made pursuant to it, preempt conflicting state and territorial laws in the 50 U.S. states and in the territor ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Circumstantial Evidence
Circumstantial evidence is evidence that relies on an inference to connect it to a conclusion of fact, such as a fingerprint at the scene of a crime. By contrast, direct evidence supports the truth of an assertion directly, i.e., without need for any additional evidence or inference. Overview On its own, circumstantial evidence allows for more than one explanation. Different pieces of circumstantial evidence may be required, so that each corroborates the conclusions drawn from the others. Together, they may more strongly support one particular inference over another. An explanation involving circumstantial evidence becomes more likely once alternative explanations have been ruled out. Circumstantial evidence allows a trier of fact to infer that a fact exists. In criminal law, the inference is made by the trier of fact to support the truth of an assertion (of guilt or absence of guilt). Reasonable doubt is tied into circumstantial evidence as that evidence relies on inference ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Supreme Court Of North Carolina
The Supreme Court of the State of North Carolina is the state of North Carolina's highest appellate court. Until the creation of the North Carolina Court of Appeals in the 1960s, it was the state's only appellate court. The Supreme Court consists of six associate justices and one chief justice, although the number of justices has varied. The primary function of the Supreme Court is to decide questions of law that have arisen in the lower courts and before state administrative agencies. History The state of North Carolina's first constitution, adopted in 1776, permitted the North Carolina General Assembly to appoint "Judges of the Supreme Courts of Law and Equity", but no appellate court was created for several years. The first one was the Court of Conference, established in 1799, consisting of several North Carolina Superior Court judges sitting ''en banc'' twice each year to review appeals from their courts. In 1805, the General Assembly renamed the institution the "Supreme Cou ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Oxford University Press, USA
Oxford University Press (OUP) is the publishing house of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world. Its first book was printed in Oxford in 1478, with the Press officially granted the legal right to print books by decree in 1586. It is the second-oldest university press after Cambridge University Press, which was founded in 1534. It is a department of the University of Oxford. It is governed by a group of 15 academics, the Delegates of the Press, appointed by the vice-chancellor of the University of Oxford. The Delegates of the Press are led by the Secretary to the Delegates, who serves as OUP's chief executive and as its major representative on other university bodies. Oxford University Press has had a similar governance structure since the 17th century. The press is located on Walton Street, Oxford, opposite Somerville College, in the inner suburb of Jericho. For the last 400 years, OUP has focused primarily on the publication of pedagogical ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Murder (United States Law)
In the United States, the law for murder varies by jurisdiction. In many US jurisdictions there is a hierarchy of acts, known collectively as homicide, of which first-degree murder and felony murder are the most serious, followed by second-degree murder and, in a few states, third-degree murder, which in other states is divided into voluntary manslaughter, and involuntary manslaughter such as reckless homicide and negligent homicide, which are the least serious, and ending finally in justifiable homicide, which is not a crime. However, because there are at least 52 relevant jurisdictions, each with its own criminal code, this is a considerable simplification. Sentencing also varies widely depending upon the specific murder charge. "Life imprisonment" is a common penalty for first-degree murder, but its meaning varies widely. Capital punishment is a legal sentence in 27 states, and in the federal civilian and military legal systems, though 8 of these states and the federal ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Life Sentence
Life imprisonment is any sentence of imprisonment under which the convicted individual is to remain incarcerated for the rest of their natural life (or until pardoned or commuted to a fixed term). Crimes that result in life imprisonment are considered extremely serious and usually violent. Examples of these crimes are murder, torture, terrorism, child abuse resulting in death, rape, espionage, treason, illegal drug trade, human trafficking, severe fraud and financial crimes, aggravated property damage, arson, hate crime, kidnapping, burglary, robbery, theft, piracy, aircraft hijacking, and genocide. Common law murder is a crime for which life imprisonment is mandatory in several countries, including some states of the United States and Canada. Life imprisonment (as a maximum term) can also be imposed, in certain countries, for traffic offences causing death. Life imprisonment is not used in all countries; Portugal was the first country to abolish life imprisonment, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
North Carolina
North Carolina ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It is bordered by Virginia to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, South Carolina to the south, Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia to the southwest, and Tennessee to the west. The state is the List of U.S. states and territories by area, 28th-largest and List of U.S. states and territories by population, 9th-most populous of the List of states and territories of the United States, United States. Along with South Carolina, it makes up the Carolinas region of the East Coast of the United States, East Coast. At the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the state had a population of 10,439,388. Raleigh, North Carolina, Raleigh is the state's List of capitals in the United States, capital and Charlotte, North Carolina, Charlotte is its List of municipalities in North Carolina, most populous and one of the fastest growing cities in the United States. The Charl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jury Trial
A jury trial, or trial by jury, is a legal proceeding in which a jury makes a decision or findings of fact. It is distinguished from a bench trial, in which a judge or panel of judges makes all decisions. Jury trials are increasingly used in a significant share of serious criminal cases in many common law judicial systems, but not all. Juries or lay judges have also been incorporated into the legal systems of many civil law countries for criminal cases. The use of jury trials, which evolved within common law systems rather than civil law systems, has had a profound impact on the nature of American civil procedure and criminal procedure rules, even if a bench trial is actually contemplated in a particular case. In general, the availability of a jury trial if properly demanded has given rise to a system in which fact finding is concentrated in a single trial rather than multiple hearings, and appellate review of trial court decisions is greatly limited. Jury trials are of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Capital Punishment
Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty and formerly called judicial homicide, is the state-sanctioned killing of a person as punishment for actual or supposed misconduct. The sentence (law), sentence ordering that an offender be punished in such a manner is called a death sentence, and the act of carrying out the sentence is an execution. A prisoner who has been sentenced to death and awaits execution is ''condemned'' and is commonly referred to as being "on death row". Etymologically, the term ''capital'' (, derived via the Latin ' from ', "head") refers to execution by Decapitation, beheading, but executions are carried out by List of methods of capital punishment, many methods, including hanging, Execution by shooting, shooting, lethal injection, stoning, Electric chair, electrocution, and Gas chamber, gassing. Crimes that are punishable by death are known as ''capital crimes'', ''capital offences'', or ''capital felonies'', and vary depending on the jurisdic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
First-degree Murder
Murder is the unlawful killing of another human without justification or valid excuse committed with the necessary intention as defined by the law in a specific jurisdiction. ("The killing of another person without justification or excuse, especially the crime of killing a person with malice aforethought or with recklessness manifesting extreme indifference to the value of human life.") This state of mind may, depending upon the jurisdiction, distinguish murder from other forms of unlawful homicide, such as manslaughter. Manslaughter is killing committed in the absence of ''malice'',This is "malice" in a technical legal sense, not the more usual English sense denoting an emotional state. See malice (law). such as in the case of voluntary manslaughter brought about by reasonable provocation, or diminished capacity. ''Involuntary'' manslaughter, where it is recognized, is a killing that lacks all but the most attenuated guilty intent, recklessness. Most societies cons ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Indictment
An indictment ( ) is a formal accusation that a person has committed a crime. In jurisdictions that use the concept of felonies, the most serious criminal offense is a felony; jurisdictions that do not use that concept often use that of an indictable offence, which is an offence that requires an indictment. Australia Section 80 of the Constitution of Australia provides that "the trial on indictment of any offence against any law of the Commonwealth shall be by jury". The High Court of Australia has consistently used a narrow interpretation of this clause, allowing the Parliament of Australia to define which offences proceed on indictment rather than conferring a universal right to a jury trial. Section 4G of the '' Crimes Act 1914'' provides that "offences against a law of the Commonwealth punishable by imprisonment for a period exceeding 12 months are indictable offences, unless the contrary intention appears". Canada A direct indictment is one in which the case is sent dir ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
North Carolina V
North is one of the four compass points or cardinal directions. It is the opposite of south and is perpendicular to east and west. ''North'' is a noun, adjective, or adverb indicating direction or geography. Etymology The word ''north'' is related to the Old High German ''nord'', both descending from the Proto-Indo-European unit *''ner-'', meaning "left; below" as north is to left when facing the rising sun. Similarly, the other cardinal directions are also related to the sun's position. The Latin word ''borealis'' comes from the Greek ''boreas'' "north wind, north" which, according to Ovid, was personified as the wind-god Boreas, the father of Calais and Zetes. ''Septentrionalis'' is from ''septentriones'', "the seven plow oxen", a name of ''Ursa Major''. The Greek ἀρκτικός (''arktikós'') is named for the same constellation, and is the source of the English word ''Arctic''. Other languages have other derivations. For example, in Lezgian, ''kefer'' can mean bot ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
