criminal law Criminal law is the body of law that relates to crime. It proscribes conduct perceived as threatening, harmful, or otherwise endangering to the property, health, safety, and Well-being, welfare of people inclusive of one's self. Most criminal l ...

, a sentence is the

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 beh ...

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 ...

ordered by a

trial court A trial court or court of first instance is a court having original jurisdiction, in which trials take place. Appeals from the decisions of trial courts are usually heard by higher courts with the power of appellate review (appellate courts). ...

after

conviction In law, a conviction is the determination by a court of law that a defendant is Guilty (law), 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 ...

in a

criminal procedure Criminal procedure is the adjudication process of the criminal law. While criminal procedure differs dramatically by jurisdiction, the process generally begins with a formal criminal charge with the person on trial either being free on bail ...

, normally at the conclusion of a

trial In law, a trial is a coming together of parties to a dispute, to present information (in the form of evidence) in a tribunal, a formal setting with the authority to adjudicate claims or disputes. One form of tribunal is a court. The tribunal, w ...

. A sentence may consist of

imprisonment Imprisonment or incarceration is the restraint of a person's liberty for any cause whatsoever, whether by authority of the government, or by a person acting without such authority. In the latter case it is considered " false imprisonment". Impri ...

, a

fine Fine may refer to: Characters * Fran Fine, the title character of ''The Nanny'' * Sylvia Fine (''The Nanny''), Fran's mother on ''The Nanny'' * Officer Fine, a character in ''Tales from the Crypt'', played by Vincent Spano Legal terms * Fine (p ...

, or other sanctions. Sentences for multiple crimes may be a concurrent sentence, where sentences of imprisonment are all served together at the same time, or a consecutive sentence, in which the period of imprisonment is the sum of all sentences served one after the other. Additional sentences include intermediate, which allows an

inmate A prisoner, also known as an inmate or detainee, is a person who is deprived of liberty against their will. This can be by confinement or captivity in a prison or physical restraint. The term usually applies to one serving a sentence in pr ...

to be free for about 8 hours a day for work purposes; determinate, which is fixed on a number of days, months, or years; and indeterminate or bifurcated, which mandates the minimum period be served in an institutional setting such as a

prison A prison, also known as a jail, gaol, penitentiary, detention center, correction center, correctional facility, or remand center, is a facility where Prisoner, people are Imprisonment, imprisoned under the authority of the State (polity), state ...

followed by street time period of

parole Parole, also known as provisional release, supervised release, or being on paper, is a form of early release of a prisoner, prison inmate where the prisoner agrees to abide by behavioral conditions, including checking-in with their designated ...

, supervised release or

probation Probation in criminal law is a period of supervision over an offence (law), offender, ordered by the court often in lieu of incarceration. In some jurisdictions, the term ''probation'' applies only to community sentences (alternatives to incar ...

until the total sentence is completed. If a sentence is reduced to a less harsh punishment, then the sentence is said to have been mitigated or commuted. Rarely, depending on circumstances,

murder Murder is the unlawful killing of another human without justification (jurisprudence), justification or valid excuse (legal), excuse committed with the necessary Intention (criminal law), intention as defined by the law in a specific jurisd ...

charges are mitigated and reduced to

manslaughter Manslaughter is a common law legal term for homicide considered by law as less culpable than murder. The distinction between murder and manslaughter is sometimes said to have first been made by the ancient Athenian lawmaker Draco in the 7th ce ...

charges. However, in certain legal systems, a defendant may be punished beyond the terms of the sentence, through phenomena including

social stigma Stigma, originally referring to the visible marking of people considered inferior, has evolved to mean a negative perception or sense of disapproval that a society places on a group or individual based on certain characteristics such as their ...

, loss of governmental benefits, or collectively, the

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 ...

Statute A statute is a law or formal written enactment of a legislature. Statutes typically declare, command or prohibit something. Statutes are distinguished from court law and unwritten law (also known as common law) in that they are the expressed wil ...

s generally specify the highest penalties that may be imposed for certain offenses, and

sentencing guidelines Sentencing guidelines define a recommended sentencing range for a criminal defendant, based upon characteristics of the defendant and of the criminal charge. Depending upon the jurisdiction, sentencing guidelines may be nonbinding, or their applic ...

often mandate the minimum and maximum imprisonment terms to imposed upon an offender, which is then left to the

discretion Discretion has the meaning of acting on one's own authority and judgment. In law, discretion as to legal rulings, such as whether evidence is excluded at a trial, may be exercised by a judge. The ability to make decisions which represent a res ...

of the trial court.See, e.g., ''United States v. Valencia-Mendoza'', ___ F.3d ___, ___
No. 17-30158
p.20-21 & n.4 (9th Cir. Jan. 10, 2019) (stating that courts of appeals "have held that, when determining whether a

tate Tate is an institution that houses, in a network of four art galleries, the United Kingdom's national collection of British art, and international modern and contemporary art. It is not a government institution, but its main sponsor is the UK ...

offense is 'punishable' by more than one year in prison, the

Supreme Court In most legal jurisdictions, a supreme court, also known as a court of last resort, apex court, high (or final) court of appeal, and court of final appeal, is the highest court within the hierarchy of courts. Broadly speaking, the decisions of ...

's recent cases require an examination of the maximum sentence possible under the state's

mandatory sentencing Mandatory sentencing requires that people convicted of certain crimes serve a predefined term of imprisonment, removing the discretion of judges to take issues such as extenuating circumstances and a person's likelihood of rehabilitation into co ...

guidelines."); see also ''Matter of Cota''
23 I&N Dec. 849
852 ( BIA 2005). However, in some jurisdictions, prosecutors have great influence over the punishments actually handed down, by virtue of their discretion to decide what offenses to charge the offender with and what facts they will seek to prove or to ask the defendant to stipulate to in a

plea agreement A plea bargain, also known as a plea agreement or plea deal, is a legal arrangement in criminal law where the defendant agrees to plead guilty or no contest to a charge in exchange for concessions from the prosecutor. These concessions can include ...

. It has been argued that legislators have an incentive to enact tougher sentences than even they would like to see applied to the typical defendant since they recognize that the blame for an inadequate sentencing range to handle a particularly egregious crime would fall upon legislators, but the blame for excessive punishments would fall upon prosecutors. Sentencing law sometimes includes cliffs that result in much stiffer penalties when certain facts apply. For instance, an

armed career criminal The Armed Career Criminal Act of 1984 (ACCA) is a United States federal law that provides sentence enhancements for felons who commit crimes with firearms if they are convicted of certain crimes three or more times. Pennsylvania Senator Arlen S ...

or habitual offender law may subject a defendant to a significant increase in their sentence if they commit a third offence of a certain kind. This makes it difficult for fine gradations in punishments to be achieved.

History

The earliest use of the term with this meaning was in

Roman law Roman law is the law, legal system of ancient Rome, including the legal developments spanning over a thousand years of jurisprudence, from the Twelve Tables (), to the (AD 529) ordered by Eastern Roman emperor Justinian I. Roman law also den ...

, where it indicated the opinion of a

jurist A jurist is a person with expert knowledge of law; someone who analyzes and comments on law. This person is usually a specialist legal scholar, mostly (but not always) with a formal education in law (a law degree) and often a Lawyer, legal prac ...

on a given question, expressed in written or in oral ''

responsa ''Responsa'' (plural of Latin , 'answer') comprise a body of written decisions and rulings given by legal scholars in response to questions addressed to them. In the modern era, the term is used to describe decisions and rulings made by scholars i ...

''. It might also refer to the opinion of senators that was translated into the '. Finally, it might also refer to the decision of the bench in both civil and penal trials, as well as the decision of the ''arbiters'' in

arbitration Arbitration is a formal method of dispute resolution involving a third party neutral who makes a binding decision. The third party neutral (the 'arbitrator', 'arbiter' or 'arbitral tribunal') renders the decision in the form of an 'arbitrati ...

. In modern Latin systems, the sentence is mainly the final act of any procedure in which a

judge A judge is a person who wiktionary:preside, presides over court proceedings, either alone or as a part of a judicial panel. In an adversarial system, the judge hears all the witnesses and any other Evidence (law), evidence presented by the barris ...

or body of judges is called upon to express their evaluation. It can therefore be issued in practically any field of law requiring a function of evaluation of something by a judge or judging body.

Classification

Sentences are variously classified depending on *the legal field, or kind of action, or system it refers to: **civil, penal, administrative, canon, sentence. **sentences of mere clearance, of condemnation, of constitution. *the issuing body, typically a monocratic judge or a court, or other figures that receive a legitimation by the system. *the jurisdiction and the legal competence single judges, courts,

tribunals A tribunal, generally, is any person or institution with authority to judge, adjudicate on, or determine claims or disputes—whether or not it is called a tribunal in its title. For example, an advocate who appears before a court with a singl ...

, appeals, supreme courts, constitutional courts, meant as the various degrees of judgement and appeal. *the content: **partial, cautelar, interlocutory, preliminar ', definitive sentences. **sentence of ' discharge or ' briefly ', also for other meanings condemnation. The sentences of condemnation are also classified by the penalty they determine: ***sentence of reclusion, ***sentence of fee, ***', sentence that impose a determined action or a series of action as a penalty for the illegal act. This kind of sentence became better developed and remained in wider use in

common law Common law (also known as judicial precedent, judge-made law, or case law) is the body of law primarily developed through judicial decisions rather than statutes. Although common law may incorporate certain statutes, it is largely based on prece ...

systems.

Philosophies

The sentence meted out depends on the philosophical principle used by the court and what the legal system regards as the purpose of punishment. The most common purposes of sentencing are: * Retribution * Deterrence of the individual or of others * Denunciation * Incapacitation * Rehabilitation * Reparation In England and Wales, section 142 of the

Criminal Justice Act 2003 The Criminal Justice Act 2003 (c. 44) is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It is a wide-ranging measure introduced to modernise many areas of the criminal justice system in England and Wales and, to a lesser extent, in Scotland a ...

has specified that in cases involving those over 18, courts should have regard to punishment of the offenders retribution, deterrence, reform and rehabilitation, protection of the public, and reparation to persons affected by their offences.

Process

Usually, the sentence comes at the end of a process in which the presiding judge or judges have been enabled to evaluate whether the conduct in question complies or does not comply with the

law Law is a set of rules that are created and are enforceable by social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior, with its precise definition a matter of longstanding debate. It has been variously described as a science and as the ar ...

, and which aspects might be breaches of which specific legislation. Depending on jurisdiction, the stages leading up to the sentence may vary, and the sentence may be challenged by both parties up to a given degree of

appeal In law, an appeal is the process in which Legal case, cases are reviewed by a higher authority, where parties request a formal change to an official decision. Appeals function both as a process for error correction as well as a process of cla ...

. If appealed against, the sentence issued by the highest

appellate court An appellate court, commonly called a court of appeal(s), appeal court, court of second instance or second instance court, is any court of law that is empowered to hear a case upon appeal from a trial court or other lower tribunal. Appel ...

to which the case is admitted becomes the definitive sentence. The sentence usually has to be publicly announced; and, in most jurisdictions, has to be justified through an explanation of the juridical reflections and evaluations that lie behind it. Even a definitive sentence can be annulled in exceptional circumstances, usually predetermined within the jurisdiction in question. Most such cases arise from irregularities found in the judicial process after sentence has been passed. The most extreme examples arise in criminal cases, when conclusive proof of innocence comes to light after sentence has been passed, leading to the sentence's annulment. In most jurisdictions, under

double jeopardy In jurisprudence, double jeopardy is a procedural defence (primarily in common law jurisdictions) that prevents an accused person from being tried again on the same (or similar) charges following an acquittal or conviction and in rare cases ...

legislation, the definitive sentence is unique, in the sense that (except for appeal hearings) no individual can be judged or sentenced more than once for the same actions. In many jurisdictions, sentences are a

source of law Sources of law are the origins of laws, the binding rules that enable any state to govern its territory. The terminology was already used in Rome by Cicero as a metaphor referring to the "fountain" ("fons" in Latin) of law. Technically, anything ...

, in that they represent an authoritative interpretation of the law in concrete cases. The sentence is typically determined by a judge and/or jury, and is issued in the name or on behalf of the superior authority of the

state State most commonly refers to: * State (polity), a centralized political organization that regulates law and society within a territory **Sovereign state, a sovereign polity in international law, commonly referred to as a country **Nation state, a ...

References

External links

Sentencing (Directgov, England and Wales)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sentence (Law)