Indictment - Law Dictionary Search Results
Home Dictionary Name: indictment Page: 2Arraign
Arraign [fr. arraisonner, aresner, aregnir, arraigner, Old Fr., i.e., ad rationem ponere, Lat., to call one to account], to bring a prisoner to the bar of the Court to answer the matter charged upon him in the indictment. The arraignment of a prisoner consists of calling upon him by name, reading to him the indictment, demanding of him whether he be guilty or not guilty, and entering his plea. The pleas upon arraignment are either the general issue, i.e., not guilty, or a plea in abatement or in bar, or the prisoner may demur to the indictment, or he may confess the fact, upon which the Court proceeds immediately to judgment. But, if the prisoner 'shall stand mute or malice, or will not answer directly to the indictment or information,' the Court, if it shall so think fit, may 'order the proper officer to enter a plea of 'not guilty' on behalf of such a person, and the plea so entered shall have the same force and effect as if the person had so pleaded the same.'-Crim. Law Act,1827 (7 ...
Criminal Appeal Act, 1907 (English)
Criminal Appeal Act, 1907 (English) (7 Edw. 7, c. 23), came into force on the 19th April, 1908. For a great number of years the merits and demerits of criminal appeal have been discussed in this country.In 1844 Sir Fitzroy Kelly, in a remarkable speech in the House of Commons, advocated criminal appeal, the claim to which has also been recognized by Starkie, Sir John Holker, and Chief Baron Pollock; and even Blackstone,with whom, as Mr. Lecky has observed, admiration of our national jurisprudence was almost a foible, passed some severe criticisms on the stateof the criminal law of his day. In more recent times Lord James of Hereford (then Sir Henry James) introduced a criminal appeal bill into the House of Commons,which was supported by Lord Russell of Killowen (then Sir Charles Russell). And in 1889 Lord Fitzgerald, when introducing a measure into the House of Lords, said that the absene of any provision for rectifying errors andmistakes in criminal cases constituted a blot upon the c...
information
information : an instrument containing a formal accusation of a crime that is issued by a prosecuting officer and that serves the same function as an indictment presented by a grand jury compare complaint, indictment NOTE: About half the states in the United States allow prosecutors to issue informations. The rest require indictment. ...
Autrefois acquit
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....
High Steward, Court of the Lord
High Steward, Court of the Lord, a tribunal instituted for the trial of peers or peeresses indicted for treason or felony, or for misprision of either, but not for any other offence. The office of Lord High Steward is very ancient, and was formerly hereditary, or held for life, or dum bene se gesserit; but it has been for many centuries granted pro hac vice only, and always to a lord of Parliament. When, therefore, such an indictment is found by a grand jury of freeholders in the King's Bench, or at the assizes before a judge of oyer and terminer, it is removed by a writ of certiorari into the Court of the Lord High Steward, which alone has power to determine it.The sovereign, in case a peer be indicted for treason, felony, or misprision, appoints a Lord High Ste-ward pro vice, by commission under the Great Seal, which, reciting the indictment so found, gives him power to receive and try it secundum legem et consuetudinem Angli'. When the indictment is regularly removed by certiorari, ...
Costs
Costs, expenses incurred in litigation or professional transactions, consisting of money paid for stamps, etc., to the officers of the Court, or to the counsel and solicitors, for their fees, etc.Costs in actions are either between solicitor and client, being what are payable in every case to the solicitor by his client, whether he ultimately succeed or not; or between party and party, being those only which are allowed in some particular cases to the party succeeding against his adversary, and these are either interlocutory, given on various motions and proceedings in the course of the suit or action, or final, allowed when the matter is determined.Neither party was entitled to costs at Common Law, but the Statute of Gloucester (6 Edw. 1, c. 4), gave cots to a successful plaintiff, and 2 & 3 Hen. 8, c. 6, and 4 Jac. 1, c. 3, to a victorious defendant; see Garnett v. Bradley, (1878) 3 App Cas 944.In proceedings between the Crown and a subject the general rule is that the Crown neither ...
Sessions of the peace
Sessions of the peace, sittings of justices of the peace for the execution of those powers which are confided to them by their commission, or by charter, and by numerous statutes. They are of three descriptions:-I. Petty Sessions.--Metropolitan Police magistrates can act alone (see that title), with that exception, every meeting of two or more justices in the same place, for the execution of some power vested in them by law, whether had on their own mere motion, or on the requisition of any party entitled to require their attendance in discharge of some duty, is a petty or petit session. The occasions for holding petty sessions are very numerous, amongst the most important of which is the bailing persons accused of felony, which may be done after a full hearing of evidence on both sides, where the presumption of guilt shall either be weak in itself, or weakened by the proofs adduced on behalf of the prisoner. See PETTY SESSIONS.As to right of the public to attend petty sessions, see OP...
Bail
Bail [fr. bailler, Fr., to hand over], to set at liberty a person arrested or imprisoned, on security being taken for his appearance on a day and at a place certain, which security is called bail, because the party arrested or imprisoned is delivered into the hands of those who bind themselves or become bail for his due appearance when required, in order that he may be safely protected from prison, to which they have, if they fear his escape, etc., the legal power to deliver him.Means a security such as cash or a bond, especially security required by court for the release of a prisoner who must appear at a further time, Black Law Dictionary, 7th Edn., p. 135.Bail, a temporary release of a prisoner in exchange for security given for the prisoner's appearance at a later hearing, Webster's Dictionary of Law, Indian Edn., (2005), p. 41.Bail may be given either in civil or criminal cases.In civil cases there were, before the abolition of arrest on mesne process by the Debtors Act, 1869:-(1)...
Birth, Concealing
Birth, Concealing. See Offences against the Person Act, 1861, s. 60, which enacts that every person who shall, by any secret disposition (see R. v. Brown, 1870 LR 1 CCR 244) of the dead body of a child, whether such child died before, at, or after his birth, endeavour to conceal the birth thereof, shall be guilty of a misdeameanour, punishable with imprisonment not exceeding two years. To constitute the offence it must be established that the mother was delivered of a child within the meaning of the statute (see R. v. Colmer, 9 Cox, 506; R. v. Hewitt, 4 F. & F. 1101), that there was a definite act of concealment of the body as distinguished from abandonment, that the child was dead at the time, and that a body has been found and identified with that of the child to whom the charge relates. S. 60 of the Act provides, further, that if any woman tried for the murder of a child is acquitted thereof, she can lawfully be convicted of concealment of birth if there is evidence of that offence....
Prefer
Prefer, means to bring before; to prosecute; to try; to proceed with. Thus, preferring an indictment signifies prosecuting or trying an indictment, Black's Law Dictionary.Prefer, to apply, to move for; as 'to prefer for costs' is a phrase for 'to apply for costs.'...
- << Prev.
- Next >>