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Convicted
In law, a conviction is the determination by a court of law that a defendant is guilty of a crime. A conviction may follow a guilty plea that is accepted by the court, a jury trial in which a verdict of guilty is delivered, or a trial by judge in which the defendant is found guilty. The opposite of a conviction is an acquittal (that is, "not guilty"). In Scotland, there can also be a verdict of " not proven", which is considered an acquittal. Sometimes, despite a defendant being found guilty, the court may order that the defendant not be convicted. This is known as a discharge and is used in countries including England, Wales, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. In any criminal justice system, innocent people are sometimes convicted. Appeal mechanisms and post conviction relief procedures may help to address this issue to some extent. An error leading to the conviction of an innocent person is known as a miscarriage of justice. In some judicial systems, the prosecution ma ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Miscarriage Of Justice
A miscarriage of justice occurs when an unfair outcome occurs in a criminal or civil proceeding, such as the conviction and punishment of a person for a crime they did not commit. Miscarriages are also known as wrongful convictions. Innocent people have sometimes ended up in prison for years before their conviction has eventually been overturned. They may be exonerated if new evidence comes to light or it is determined that the police or prosecutor committed some kind of misconduct at the original trial. In some jurisdictions this leads to the payment of compensation.Compensating The Wrongly Convicted , Innocence Project Academic studies have found that the main factors contributing to miscarriages of justice are: [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Convict
A convict is "a person found guilty of a crime and sentenced by a court" or "a person serving a sentence in prison". Convicts are often also known as "prisoners" or "inmates" or by the slang term "con", while a common label for former convicts, especially those recently released from prison, is "ex-con" ("ex-convict"). Persons convicted and sentenced to non-custodial sentences tend not to be described as "convicts". The label of "ex-convict" usually has lifelong implications, such as social stigma or reduced opportunities for employment. The federal government of Australia, for instance, will not, in general, employ an ex-convict, while some state and territory governments may limit the time for or before which a former convict may be employed. Historical usage The particular use of the term "convict" in the English-speaking world was to describe the huge numbers of criminals, both male and female, who clogged British gaols in the 18th and early 19th century. Their crim ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Post Conviction
In law, post conviction refers to the legal process which takes place after a trial results in conviction of the defendant. After conviction, a court will proceed with sentencing the guilty party. In the American criminal justice system, once a defendant has received a guilty verdict, they can then challenge a conviction or sentence. This takes place through different legal actions, known as filing an appeal or a federal ''habeas corpus'' proceeding. The goal of these proceedings is exoneration, or proving a convicted person innocent. If lacking representation, the defendant may consult or hire an attorney to exercise his or her legal rights. The post-conviction process is in place to protect innocent individuals from inherent human error in the criminal justice system. One study cites 10,000 innocent people are convicted each year in the United States. Criminal appeals The appeals process is the request for a formal change of a decision made by a court of law. The litigant ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Collateral Consequences Of Criminal Charges
Collateral consequences of criminal conviction are the additional civil state penalties, mandated by statute, that attach to a criminal conviction. They are not part of the direct consequences of criminal conviction, such as prison, fines, or probation. They are the further civil actions by the state that are triggered as a consequence of the conviction. In some jurisdictions, a judge, finding a defendant guilty of a crime, can order that no conviction be recorded, thereby relieving the person of the collateral consequences of a criminal conviction. Introduction If a defendant is found guilty of a crime or pleads guilty, the judge or other sentencing authority imposes a sentence. A sentence can take a number of forms, such as loss of privileges (e.g. driving), house arrest, community service, probation, fines and imprisonment. Collectively, these sentences are referred to as direct consequences – those intended by the judge, and frequently mandated at least in part by an a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Criminal Justice
Criminal justice is the delivery of justice to those who have been accused of committing crimes. The criminal justice system is a series of government agencies and institutions. Goals include the rehabilitation of offenders, preventing other crimes, and moral support for victims. The primary institutions of the criminal justice system are the police, prosecution and defense lawyers, the courts and the prisons system. Criminal justice system Definition The criminal justice system consists of three main parts: #Law enforcement agencies, usually the police #Courts ,accompanying prosecution and defence lawyers #Agencies for detaining and supervising offenders, such as prisons and probation agencies. In the criminal justice system, these distinct agencies operate together as the principal means of maintaining the rule of law within society. Law enforcement The first contact a defendant has with the criminal justice system is usually with the police (or ''law enforcement'') wh ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Court Of Law
A court is an institution, often a government entity, with the authority to adjudicate legal disputes between Party (law), parties and Administration of justice, administer justice in Civil law (common law), civil, Criminal law, criminal, and Administrative law, administrative matters in accordance with the rule of law. Courts generally consist of Judge, judges or other judicial officers, and are usually established and dissolved through legislation enacted by a legislature. Courts may also be established by constitution or an equivalent constituting instrument. The practical authority given to the court is known as its jurisdiction, which describes the court's power to decide certain kinds of questions, or Petition, petitions put to it. There are various kinds of courts, including trial courts, appellate courts, administrative courts, international courts, and tribunals. Description A court is any person or institution, often as a government institution, with the authori ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Common Law Legal Terminology
Common may refer to: As an Irish surname, it is anglicised from Irish Gaelic surname Ó Comáin. Places * Common, a townland in County Tyrone, Northern Ireland * Boston Common, a central public park in Boston, Massachusetts * Cambridge Common, common land area in Cambridge, Massachusetts * Clapham Common, originally common land, now a park in London, UK * Common Moss, a townland in County Tyrone, Northern Ireland * Lexington Common, a common land area in Lexington, Massachusetts * Salem Common Historic District, a common land area in Salem, Massachusetts People * Common (rapper) (born 1972), American hip hop artist, actor, and poet * Andrew Ainslie Common (1841–1903), English amateur astronomer * Andrew Common (1889–1953), British shipping director * John Common, American songwriter, musician and singer * Thomas Common (1850–1919), Scottish translator and literary critic Arts, entertainment, and media * ''Common'' (film), a 2014 BBC One film, written by Jimm ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Clearance Rate
In criminal justice, clearance rate is calculated by dividing the number of crimes that are "cleared", a criminal charge being laid, or convicted by the total number of crimes recorded. Various groups use clearance rates as a measure of crimes solved by the police. Clearance rates can be problematic for measuring the performance of police services and for comparing various police services. This is because a police force may employ a different way of measuring clearance rates. For example, each police force may have a different method of recording when a "crime" has occurred and different criteria for determining when a crime has been "cleared." A given police force may appear to have a much better clearance rate because of its calculation methodology. In system conflict theory, it is argued that clearance rates cause the police to focus on ''appearing ''to solve crimes (generating high clearance rate scores) rather than actually solving crimes. Further focus on clearance rates ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Verdict
In law, a verdict is the formal finding of fact made by a jury on matters or questions submitted to the jury by a judge. In a bench trial, the judge's decision near the end of the trial is simply referred to as a finding. In England and Wales, a coroner's findings used to be called verdicts but are, since 2009, called conclusions (see ). Etymology The term "verdict", from the Latin ''veredictum'', literally means "to say the truth" and is derived from Middle English ''verdit'', from Anglo-Norman: a compound of ''ver'' ("true", from the Latin ''vērus'') and ''dit'' ("speech", from the Latin ''dictum'', the neuter past participle of ''dīcere'', to say). Criminal law In a criminal case, the verdict, either "not guilty" or "guilty"—except in Scotland where the verdict of " not proven" is also available—is handed down by the jury. Different counts in the same case may have different verdicts. A verdict of guilty in a criminal case generally requires evidence to be tes ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Conviction Rate
The conviction rate, expressed as a percentage, represents the proportion of cases resulting in a legal declaration of Guilt (law), guilt for an offense, against the total number of trials completed. It is calculated by dividing the number of convictions by the total number of adjudicated cases and then multiplying by 100. A conviction is a legal declaration that someone is guilty of committing an offense, determined through a Jury trial, jury's or Bench trial, bench's verdict within a court of law. Conviction rates reflect many aspects of the legal processes and systems at work within the jurisdiction, and are a source of both jurisdictional pride and broad controversy. Rates are often high, especially when presented in their most general form (i.e., without qualification regarding changes made to original charges, pleas that are negotiated, etc.). Rates across jurisdictions within countries can vary by tens of percentage points (e.g., across states within the U.S.). In other cas ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Antecedent (law)
Antecedents are the life history and previous convictions of a defendant in a criminal case. They are colloquially known as "previous convictions" (or simply "previous") in the United Kingdom and "prior convictions" in the United States and Australia (or simply "priors"). In the UK, when a defendant is being sentenced for a crime In ordinary language, a crime is an unlawful act punishable by a State (polity), state or other authority. The term ''crime'' does not, in modern criminal law, have any simple and universally accepted definition,Farmer, Lindsay: "Crime, definiti ..., the court will be told antecedents. This information is usually considered by the judge/magistrate in deciding the sentence the defendant will receive. If a defendant pleads " not guilty", previous convictions are not usually made known to the jury during the trial, to prevent prejudice against the defendant, but it is argued if the defendant has previous convictions for similar types of offense, this can ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Punishment
Punishment, commonly, is the imposition of an undesirable or unpleasant outcome upon an individual or group, meted out by an authority—in contexts ranging from child discipline to criminal law—as a deterrent to a particular action or behavior that is deemed undesirable. It is, however, possible to distinguish between various different understandings of what punishment is. The reasoning for punishment may be to condition a child to avoid self-endangerment, to impose social conformity (in particular, in the contexts of compulsory education or military discipline), to defend norms, to protect against future harms (in particular, those from violent crime), and to maintain the law—and respect for rule of law—under which the social group is governed. and violates the law or rules by which the group is governed. Punishment may be self-inflicted as with self-flagellation and mortification of the flesh in the religious setting, but is most often a form of socia ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
