A culprit, under English law properly the

prison A prison, also known as a jail, gaol (dated, standard English, Australian, and historically in Canada), penitentiary (American English and Canadian English), detention center (or detention centre outside the US), correction center, correc ...

er at the bar, is one accused of a

crime In ordinary language, a crime is an unlawful act punishable by a state or other authority. The term ''crime'' does not, in modern criminal law, have any simple and universally accepted definition,Farmer, Lindsay: "Crime, definitions of", in Ca ...

. The term is used, generally, of one guilty of an offence. In

origin Origin(s) or The Origin may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Comics and manga * ''Origin'' (comics), a Wolverine comic book mini-series published by Marvel Comics in 2002 * ''The Origin'' (Buffy comic), a 1999 ''Buffy the Vampire Sl ...

the word is a combination of two Anglo-French legal words, culpable: guilty, and prit or prest:

Old French Old French (, , ; Modern French: ) was the language spoken in most of the northern half of France from approximately the 8th to the 14th centuries. Rather than a unified language, Old French was a linkage of Romance dialects, mutually intelligi ...

: ready. On the prisoner at the bar pleading not guilty, the clerk of the crown answered culpable, and states that he was ready ("prest") to join issue. The words "cul. prist" were then entered on the roll, showing that issue had been joined. When

French law The Law of France refers to the legal system in the French Republic, which is a civil law legal system primarily based on legal codes and statutes, with case law also playing an important role. The most influential of the French legal codes is th ...

terms were discontinued, the words were taken as forming one word addressed to the prisoner. The formula "Culprit, how will you be tried?" in answer to a plea of "not guilty," is first found in the trial for murder of the 7th Earl of Pembroke in 1678. Under current criminal law, the preferred term is

defendant In court proceedings, a defendant is a person or object who is the party either accused of committing a crime in criminal prosecution or against whom some type of civil relief is being sought in a civil case. Terminology varies from one juris ...

References

Sources

* Criminal law Common law legal terminology Criminal law legal terminology {{crime-stub