Autrefois acquit (formerly acquitted), a plea in criminal cases; when a person is indicted for an offence and acquitted, he cannot be afterwards indicted for the same offence, provided the first indictment were such that he could have been lawfully convicted on it; and if he be thus indicted a second time, he may plead autrefois acquit, which will be a good bar to the indictment. The true test, whether such a plea is a sufficient bar, is, whether the evidence necessary to support the second indictment would have been sufficient to procure a legal conviction upon the first, R. v. Emden, (1808) 9 East, 437; R. v. King, 1897 (1) QB 214, explained and distinguished in Rex v. Barron, 1914, s. KB 570; Criminal Procedure Act, 1851 (14 & 15 Vict. c. 100), s. 28; and the (English) Evidence Act, 1851 (c. 99), s. 13.
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