List of basic criminal justice topics
Encyclopedia
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to criminal justice:

Criminal justice
Criminal justice
Criminal Justice is the system of practices and institutions of governments directed at upholding social control, deterring and mitigating crime, or sanctioning those who violate laws with criminal penalties and rehabilitation efforts...

– system of practices and institutions of government
Government
Government refers to the legislators, administrators, and arbitrators in the administrative bureaucracy who control a state at a given time, and to the system of government by which they are organized...

s directed at upholding social control
Social control
Social control refers generally to societal and political mechanisms or processes that regulate individual and group behavior, leading to conformity and compliance to the rules of a given society, state, or social group. Many mechanisms of social control are cross-cultural, if only in the control...

, deterring
Deterrence (legal)
Deterrence is the use of punishment as a threat to deter people from committing a crime. Deterrence is often contrasted with retributivism, which holds that punishment is a necessary consequence of a crime and should be calculated based on the gravity of the wrong done.- Categories :Deterrence can...

 and mitigating crime
Crime
Crime is the breach of rules or laws for which some governing authority can ultimately prescribe a conviction...

, or sanctioning those who violate law
Law
Law is a system of rules and guidelines which are enforced through social institutions to govern behavior, wherever possible. It shapes politics, economics and society in numerous ways and serves as a social mediator of relations between people. Contract law regulates everything from buying a bus...

s with criminal penalties and rehabilitation
Rehabilitation (penology)
Rehabilitation means; To restore to useful life, as through therapy and education or To restore to good condition, operation, or capacity....

 efforts.

Parts of the criminal justice system

  1. Legislative system – network of legislature
    Legislature
    A legislature is a kind of deliberative assembly with the power to pass, amend, and repeal laws. The law created by a legislature is called legislation or statutory law. In addition to enacting laws, legislatures usually have exclusive authority to raise or lower taxes and adopt the budget and...

    s that create laws.
  2. Judiciary
    Judiciary
    The judiciary is the system of courts that interprets and applies the law in the name of the state. The judiciary also provides a mechanism for the resolution of disputes...

     system – network of courts that interpret the law in the name of the state, and carry out the administration of justice
    Justice
    Justice is a concept of moral rightness based on ethics, rationality, law, natural law, religion, or equity, along with the punishment of the breach of said ethics; justice is the act of being just and/or fair.-Concept of justice:...

     in civil
    Private law
    Private law is that part of a civil law legal system which is part of the jus commune that involves relationships between individuals, such as the law of contracts or torts, as it is called in the common law, and the law of obligations as it is called in civilian legal systems...

    , criminal
    Criminal law
    Criminal law, is the body of law that relates to crime. It might be defined as the body of rules that defines conduct that is not allowed because it is held to threaten, harm or endanger the safety and welfare of people, and that sets out the punishment to be imposed on people who do not obey...

    , and administrative
    Administrative law
    Administrative law is the body of law that governs the activities of administrative agencies of government. Government agency action can include rulemaking, adjudication, or the enforcement of a specific regulatory agenda. Administrative law is considered a branch of public law...

     matters in accordance with the rule of law
    Rule of law
    The rule of law, sometimes called supremacy of law, is a legal maxim that says that governmental decisions should be made by applying known principles or laws with minimal discretion in their application...

    .
  3. Corrections
    Corrections
    In criminal justice, particularly in North America, correction, corrections, and correctional, are umbrella terms describing a variety of functions typically carried out by government agencies and involving the punishment, treatment, and supervision of persons who have been convicted of crimes....

     system – network of governmental agencies that administer a jurisdiction's prisons, probation, and parole systems.

Crime

Crime
Crime
Crime is the breach of rules or laws for which some governing authority can ultimately prescribe a conviction...

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  • Organized crime
    Organized crime
    Organized crime or criminal organizations are transnational, national, or local groupings of highly centralized enterprises run by criminals for the purpose of engaging in illegal activity, most commonly for monetary profit. Some criminal organizations, such as terrorist organizations, are...

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    • Mafia
      Mafia
      The Mafia is a criminal syndicate that emerged in the mid-nineteenth century in Sicily, Italy. It is a loose association of criminal groups that share a common organizational structure and code of conduct, and whose common enterprise is protection racketeering...

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  • Violence
    Violence
    Violence is the use of physical force to apply a state to others contrary to their wishes. violence, while often a stand-alone issue, is often the culmination of other kinds of conflict, e.g...

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Felonies

Felony
Felony
A felony is a serious crime in the common law countries. The term originates from English common law where felonies were originally crimes which involved the confiscation of a convicted person's land and goods; other crimes were called misdemeanors...

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  • Arson
    Arson
    Arson is the crime of intentionally or maliciously setting fire to structures or wildland areas. It may be distinguished from other causes such as spontaneous combustion and natural wildfires...

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  • Assault
    Assault
    In law, assault is a crime causing a victim to fear violence. The term is often confused with battery, which involves physical contact. The specific meaning of assault varies between countries, but can refer to an act that causes another to apprehend immediate and personal violence, or in the more...

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  • Bias crime
    Hate crime
    In crime and law, hate crimes occur when a perpetrator targets a victim because of his or her perceived membership in a certain social group, usually defined by racial group, religion, sexual orientation, disability, class, ethnicity, nationality, age, gender, gender identity, social status or...

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  • Burglary
    Burglary
    Burglary is a crime, the essence of which is illicit entry into a building for the purposes of committing an offense. Usually that offense will be theft, but most jurisdictions specify others which fall within the ambit of burglary...

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  • Elder abuse
    Elder abuse
    Elder abuse is a general term used to describe certain types of harm to older adults. Other terms commonly used include: "elder mistreatment," "senior abuse," "abuse in later life," "abuse of older adults," "abuse of older women," and "abuse of older men."...

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  • Embezzlement
    Embezzlement
    Embezzlement is the act of dishonestly appropriating or secreting assets by one or more individuals to whom such assets have been entrusted....

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  • Entrapment
    Entrapment
    In criminal law, entrapment is conduct by a law enforcement agent inducing a person to commit an offense that the person would otherwise have been unlikely to commit. In many jurisdictions, entrapment is a possible defense against criminal liability...

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  • Espionage
    Espionage
    Espionage or spying involves an individual obtaining information that is considered secret or confidential without the permission of the holder of the information. Espionage is inherently clandestine, lest the legitimate holder of the information change plans or take other countermeasures once it...

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  • Forgery
    Forgery
    Forgery is the process of making, adapting, or imitating objects, statistics, or documents with the intent to deceive. Copies, studio replicas, and reproductions are not considered forgeries, though they may later become forgeries through knowing and willful misrepresentations. Forging money or...

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  • Fear of crime
    Fear of crime
    The fear of crime refers to the fear of being a victim of crime as opposed to the actual probability of being a victim of crime.The fear of crime, along with fear of the streets and the fear of youth, is said to have been in Western culture for "time immemorial"...

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  • Hate crime
    Hate crime
    In crime and law, hate crimes occur when a perpetrator targets a victim because of his or her perceived membership in a certain social group, usually defined by racial group, religion, sexual orientation, disability, class, ethnicity, nationality, age, gender, gender identity, social status or...

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  • Kidnapping
    Kidnapping
    In criminal law, kidnapping is the taking away or transportation of a person against that person's will, usually to hold the person in false imprisonment, a confinement without legal authority...

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  • Murder
    Murder
    Murder is the unlawful killing, with malice aforethought, of another human being, and generally this state of mind distinguishes murder from other forms of unlawful homicide...

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  • Perjury
    Perjury
    Perjury, also known as forswearing, is the willful act of swearing a false oath or affirmation to tell the truth, whether spoken or in writing, concerning matters material to a judicial proceeding. That is, the witness falsely promises to tell the truth about matters which affect the outcome of the...

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  • Prostitution
    Prostitution
    Prostitution is the act or practice of providing sexual services to another person in return for payment. The person who receives payment for sexual services is called a prostitute and the person who receives such services is known by a multitude of terms, including a "john". Prostitution is one of...

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  • Rape
    Rape
    Rape is a type of sexual assault usually involving sexual intercourse, which is initiated by one or more persons against another person without that person's consent. The act may be carried out by physical force, coercion, abuse of authority or with a person who is incapable of valid consent. The...

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  • Robbery
    Robbery
    Robbery is the crime of taking or attempting to take something of value by force or threat of force or by putting the victim in fear. At common law, robbery is defined as taking the property of another, with the intent to permanently deprive the person of that property, by means of force or fear....

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  • Shoplifting
    Shoplifting
    Shoplifting is theft of goods from a retail establishment. It is one of the most common property crimes dealt with by police and courts....

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  • Terrorism
    Terrorism
    Terrorism is the systematic use of terror, especially as a means of coercion. In the international community, however, terrorism has no universally agreed, legally binding, criminal law definition...

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  • Theft
    Theft
    In common usage, theft is the illegal taking of another person's property without that person's permission or consent. The word is also used as an informal shorthand term for some crimes against property, such as burglary, embezzlement, larceny, looting, robbery, shoplifting and fraud...

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  • Treason
    Treason
    In law, treason is the crime that covers some of the more extreme acts against one's sovereign or nation. Historically, treason also covered the murder of specific social superiors, such as the murder of a husband by his wife. Treason against the king was known as high treason and treason against a...

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  • War crime
    War crime
    War crimes are serious violations of the laws applicable in armed conflict giving rise to individual criminal responsibility...

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General concepts in criminal justice

  • Abuse defense
    Abuse defense
    The abuse defense is a criminal law defense in which the defendant argues that a prior history of abuse justifies violent retaliation. While the term most often refers to instances of child abuse or sexual assault, it also refers more generally to any attempt by the defense to use a syndrome or...

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  • Actus reus
    Actus reus
    Actus reus, sometimes called the external element or the objective element of a crime, is the Latin term for the "guilty act" which, when proved beyond a reasonable doubt in combination with the mens rea, "guilty mind", produces criminal liability in the common law-based criminal law jurisdictions...

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  • Administrative law
    Administrative law
    Administrative law is the body of law that governs the activities of administrative agencies of government. Government agency action can include rulemaking, adjudication, or the enforcement of a specific regulatory agenda. Administrative law is considered a branch of public law...

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  • Affray
    Affray
    In many legal jurisdictions related to English common law, affray is a public order offence consisting of the fighting of two or more persons in a public place to the terror of ordinary people...

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  • Arraignment
    Arraignment
    Arraignment is a formal reading of a criminal complaint in the presence of the defendant to inform the defendant of the charges against him or her. In response to arraignment, the accused is expected to enter a plea...

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  • Arrest warrant
    Arrest warrant
    An arrest warrant is a warrant issued by and on behalf of the state, which authorizes the arrest and detention of an individual.-Canada:Arrest warrants are issued by a judge or justice of the peace under the Criminal Code of Canada....

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  • Attendant circumstances –
  • Bail
    Bail
    Traditionally, bail is some form of property deposited or pledged to a court to persuade it to release a suspect from jail, on the understanding that the suspect will return for trial or forfeit the bail...

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  • Booking
    Arrest
    An arrest is the act of depriving a person of his or her liberty usually in relation to the purported investigation and prevention of crime and presenting into the criminal justice system or harm to oneself or others...

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  • Case law
    Case law
    In law, case law is the set of reported judicial decisions of selected appellate courts and other courts of first instance which make new interpretations of the law and, therefore, can be cited as precedents in a process known as stare decisis...

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  • Causation
    Causation (law)
    Causation is the "causal relationship between conduct and result". That is to say that causation provides a means of connecting conduct with a resulting effect, typically an injury. In criminal law, it is defined as the actus reus from which the specific injury or other effect arose and is...

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  • Chain of custody
    Chain of custody
    Chain of custody refers to the chronological documentation or paper trail, showing the seizure, custody, control, transfer, analysis, and disposition of evidence, physical or electronic...

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  • Citizen's arrest
    Citizen's arrest
    A citizen's arrest is an arrest made by a person who is not acting as a sworn law-enforcement official. In common law jurisdictions, the practice dates back to medieval Britain and the English common law, in which sheriffs encouraged ordinary citizens to help apprehend law breakers.Despite the...

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  • civil law
    Civil law (legal system)
    Civil law is a legal system inspired by Roman law and whose primary feature is that laws are codified into collections, as compared to common law systems that gives great precedential weight to common law on the principle that it is unfair to treat similar facts differently on different...

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  • Clearance rate
    Clearance rate
    In criminal justice, clearance rate is calculated by dividing the number of crimes that are "cleared" by the total number of crimes recorded. Clearance rates are used by various groups as a measure of crimes solved by the police....

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  • Common law
    Common law
    Common law is law developed by judges through decisions of courts and similar tribunals rather than through legislative statutes or executive branch action...

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  • Concurrence
    Concurrence
    In Western jurisprudence, concurrence is the apparent need to prove the simultaneous occurrence of both actus reus and mens rea , to constitute a crime; except in crimes of strict liability...

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  • Concurrent sentence
    Sentence (law)
    In law, a sentence forms the final explicit act of a judge-ruled process, and also the symbolic principal act connected to his function. The sentence can generally involve a decree of imprisonment, a fine and/or other punishments against a defendant convicted of a crime...

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  • Conflict model
    Conflict model (criminal justice)
    The conflict model of criminal justice , sometimes called the non-system perspective or system conflict theory, argues that the organizations of a criminal justice system either do, or should, work competitively to produce justice, as opposed to cooperatively.-History:System conflict theory argues...

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  • Consecutive sentence
    Sentence (law)
    In law, a sentence forms the final explicit act of a judge-ruled process, and also the symbolic principal act connected to his function. The sentence can generally involve a decree of imprisonment, a fine and/or other punishments against a defendant convicted of a crime...

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  • Command responsibility
    Command responsibility
    Command responsibility, sometimes referred to as the Yamashita standard or the Medina standard, and also known as superior responsibility, is the doctrine of hierarchical accountability in cases of war crimes....

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  • Consensus model
    Consensus model (criminal justice)
    The Consensus Model or Systems Perspective of criminal justice argues that the organizations of a criminal justice system either do, or should, work cooperatively to produce justice, as opposed to competitively....

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  • Corpus delicti
    Corpus delicti
    Corpus delicti is a term from Western jurisprudence referring to the principle that a crime must have been proven to have occurred before a person can be convicted of committing that crime. For example, a person cannot be tried for larceny unless it can be proven that property has been stolen...

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  • Corrections
    Corrections
    In criminal justice, particularly in North America, correction, corrections, and correctional, are umbrella terms describing a variety of functions typically carried out by government agencies and involving the punishment, treatment, and supervision of persons who have been convicted of crimes....

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  • Creative lawyering
    Innovative defense
    Innovative defenses are relatively new and untried defenses for having committed a criminal act...

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  • Crime
    Crime
    Crime is the breach of rules or laws for which some governing authority can ultimately prescribe a conviction...

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  • Crime control
    Social control
    Social control refers generally to societal and political mechanisms or processes that regulate individual and group behavior, leading to conformity and compliance to the rules of a given society, state, or social group. Many mechanisms of social control are cross-cultural, if only in the control...

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  • Crime index –
  • Criminal justice
    Criminal justice
    Criminal Justice is the system of practices and institutions of governments directed at upholding social control, deterring and mitigating crime, or sanctioning those who violate laws with criminal penalties and rehabilitation efforts...

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  • Criminology
    Criminology
    Criminology is the scientific study of the nature, extent, causes, and control of criminal behavior in both the individual and in society...

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  • Death penalty –
  • Defense (legal)
    Defense (legal)
    In civil proceedings and criminal prosecutions under the common law, a defendant may raise a defense in an attempt to avoid criminal or civil liability...

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  • Defense of property
    Defense of property
    The defence of property is a possible justification used by defendants who argue that they should not be held liable for the loss and injury they have caused because they were acting to protect their property. Courts have generally ruled that the use of force may be acceptable.-English...

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  • Denial of a speedy trial –
  • Deterrence
    Deterrence (legal)
    Deterrence is the use of punishment as a threat to deter people from committing a crime. Deterrence is often contrasted with retributivism, which holds that punishment is a necessary consequence of a crime and should be calculated based on the gravity of the wrong done.- Categories :Deterrence can...

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  • Diminished responsibility
    Diminished responsibility
    In criminal law, diminished responsibility is a potential defense by excuse by which defendants argue that although they broke the law, they should not be held fully criminally liable for doing so, as their mental functions were "diminished" or impaired. The defense's acceptance in American...

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  • Diminished responsibility in English law
    Diminished responsibility in English law
    In English law, diminished responsibility is one of the partial defences that reduce the offence from murder to manslaughter if successful . This allows the judge sentencing discretion, e.g. to impose a hospital order under section 37 Mental Health Act 1983 to ensure treatment rather than...

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  • Double jeopardy
    Double jeopardy
    Double jeopardy is a procedural defense that forbids a defendant from being tried again on the same, or similar charges following a legitimate acquittal or conviction...

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  • Due process
    Due process
    Due process is the legal code that the state must venerate all of the legal rights that are owed to a person under the principle. Due process balances the power of the state law of the land and thus protects individual persons from it...

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  • Evidentiary hearing
    Preliminary hearing
    Within some criminal justice systems, a preliminary hearing is a proceeding, after a criminal complaint has been filed by the prosecutor, to determine whether there is enough evidence to require a trial...

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  • Excuse
    Excuse
    In jurisprudence, an excuse or justification is a defense to criminal charges that is distinct from an exculpation. In this context, "to excuse" means to grant or obtain an exemption for a group of persons sharing a common characteristic from a potential liability. "To justify" as in justifiable...

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  • Execution warrant
    Execution warrant
    An execution warrant is a writ which authorizes the execution of a judgment of death on an individual...

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  • Grand jury
    Grand jury
    A grand jury is a type of jury that determines whether a criminal indictment will issue. Currently, only the United States retains grand juries, although some other common law jurisdictions formerly employed them, and most other jurisdictions employ some other type of preliminary hearing...

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  • Ignorance of the law
    Ignorantia juris non excusat
    Ignorantia juris non excusat or ignorantia legis neminem excusat is a legal principle holding that a person who is unaware of a law may not escape liability for violating that law merely because he or she was unaware of its content...

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  • Inchoate offense
    Inchoate offense
    An inchoate offense, inchoate offence, or inchoate crime is the crime of preparing for or seeking to commit another crime. The most common example of an inchoate offense is conspiracy...

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  • Indictable offence
    Indictable offence
    In many common law jurisdictions , an indictable offence is an offence which can only be tried on an indictment after a preliminary hearing to determine whether there is a prima facie case to answer or by a grand jury...

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  • Indictment
    Indictment
    An indictment , in the common-law legal system, is a formal accusation that a person has committed a crime. In jurisdictions that maintain the concept of felonies, the serious criminal offence is a felony; jurisdictions that lack the concept of felonies often use that of an indictable offence—an...

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  • Individual rights
    Individual rights
    Group rights are rights held by a group rather than by its members separately, or rights held only by individuals within the specified group; in contrast, individual rights are rights held by individual people regardless of their group membership or lack thereof...

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  • Infraction –
  • Innovative defense
    Innovative defense
    Innovative defenses are relatively new and untried defenses for having committed a criminal act...

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  • Insanity defense –
  • Islamic law
    Sharia
    Sharia law, is the moral code and religious law of Islam. Sharia is derived from two primary sources of Islamic law: the precepts set forth in the Quran, and the example set by the Islamic prophet Muhammad in the Sunnah. Fiqh jurisprudence interprets and extends the application of sharia to...

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  • Jurisprudence
    Jurisprudence
    Jurisprudence is the theory and philosophy of law. Scholars of jurisprudence, or legal theorists , hope to obtain a deeper understanding of the nature of law, of legal reasoning, legal systems and of legal institutions...

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  • Jury instructions
    Jury instructions
    Jury instructions are the set of legal rules that jurors should follow when the jury is deciding a civil or criminal case. Jury instructions are given to the jury by the jury instructor, who usually reads them aloud to the jury...

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  • Jury nullification
    Jury nullification
    Jury nullification occurs in a trial when a jury reaches a verdict contrary to the judge's instructions as to the law.A jury verdict contrary to the letter of the law pertains only to the particular case before it; however, if a pattern of acquittals develops in response to repeated attempts to...

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  • Jury trial
    Jury trial
    A jury trial is a legal proceeding in which a jury either makes a decision or makes findings of fact which are then applied by a judge...

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  • Justice
    Justice
    Justice is a concept of moral rightness based on ethics, rationality, law, natural law, religion, or equity, along with the punishment of the breach of said ethics; justice is the act of being just and/or fair.-Concept of justice:...

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  • Justification
    Excuse
    In jurisprudence, an excuse or justification is a defense to criminal charges that is distinct from an exculpation. In this context, "to excuse" means to grant or obtain an exemption for a group of persons sharing a common characteristic from a potential liability. "To justify" as in justifiable...

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  • Kangaroo court
    Kangaroo court
    A kangaroo court is "a mock court in which the principles of law and justice are disregarded or perverted".The outcome of a trial by kangaroo court is essentially determined in advance, usually for the purpose of ensuring conviction, either by going through the motions of manipulated procedure or...

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  • Law
    Law
    Law is a system of rules and guidelines which are enforced through social institutions to govern behavior, wherever possible. It shapes politics, economics and society in numerous ways and serves as a social mediator of relations between people. Contract law regulates everything from buying a bus...

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  • Liability
    Legal liability
    Legal liability is the legal bound obligation to pay debts.* In law a person is said to be legally liable when they are financially and legally responsible for something. Legal liability concerns both civil law and criminal law. See Strict liability. Under English law, with the passing of the Theft...

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  • Manslaughter
    Manslaughter
    Manslaughter is a legal term for the killing of a human being, in a manner considered by law as less culpable than murder. The distinction between murder and manslaughter is said to have first been made by the Ancient Athenian lawmaker Dracon in the 7th century BC.The law generally differentiates...

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  • Manslaughter in English law
    Manslaughter in English law
    In the English law of homicide, manslaughter is a less serious offence than murder, the differential being between levels of fault based on the mens rea . In England and Wales, the usual practice is to prefer a charge of murder, with the judge or defence able to introduce manslaughter as an option...

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  • M'Naghten Rules
    M'Naghten Rules
    The M'Naghten rules were a reaction to the acquittal of Daniel McNaughton. They arise from the attempted assassination of the British Prime Minister, Robert Peel, in 1843 by Daniel M'Naghten. In fact, M'Naghten fired a pistol at the back of Peel's secretary, Edward Drummond, who died five days later...

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  • * Mens rea
    Mens rea
    Mens rea is Latin for "guilty mind". In criminal law, it is viewed as one of the necessary elements of a crime. The standard common law test of criminal liability is usually expressed in the Latin phrase, actus non facit reum nisi mens sit rea, which means "the act does not make a person guilty...

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  • Miranda Warning
    Miranda warning
    The Miranda warning is a warning given by police in the United States to criminal suspects in police custody before they are interrogated to preserve the admissibility of their statements against them in criminal proceedings. In Miranda v...

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  • Mistake
    Mistake (criminal law)
    A mistake of fact may sometimes offer exculpation by allowing a criminal defendant some relief from liability for having broken the law...

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  • Motive
    Motive (law)
    A motive, in law, especially criminal law, is the cause that moves people to induce a certain action. Motive, in itself, is not an element of any given crime; however, the legal system typically allows motive to be proven in order to make plausible the accused's reasons for committing a crime, at...

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  • Motor vehicle theft
    Motor vehicle theft
    Motor vehicle theft is the criminal act of stealing or attempting to steal a motor vehicle...

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  • Murder in English law
    Murder in English law
    Murder is an offence under the common law of England and Wales. It is considered the most serious form of homicide, in which one person kills another either intending to cause death or intending to cause serious injury .-Actus reus:The definition of the actus reus Murder is an offence under the...

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  • Negligence
    Criminal negligence
    In the criminal law, criminal negligence is one of the three general classes of mens rea element required to constitute a conventional as opposed to strict liability offense. It is defined as an act that is:-Concept:...

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  • Obscenity
    Obscenity
    An obscenity is any statement or act which strongly offends the prevalent morality of the time, is a profanity, or is otherwise taboo, indecent, abhorrent, or disgusting, or is especially inauspicious...

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  • Offense –
  • Pardon
    Pardon
    Clemency means the forgiveness of a crime or the cancellation of the penalty associated with it. It is a general concept that encompasses several related procedures: pardoning, commutation, remission and reprieves...

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  • Penal law
    Penal law
    In the most general sense, penal is the body of laws that are enforced by the State in its own name and impose penalties for their violation, as opposed to civil law that seeks to redress private wrongs...

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  • Peremptory pleas –
  • Plea bargain
    Plea bargain
    A plea bargain is an agreement in a criminal case whereby the prosecutor offers the defendant the opportunity to plead guilty, usually to a lesser charge or to the original criminal charge with a recommendation of a lighter than the maximum sentence.A plea bargain allows criminal defendants to...

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  • Precedent
    Precedent
    In common law legal systems, a precedent or authority is a principle or rule established in a legal case that a court or other judicial body may apply when deciding subsequent cases with similar issues or facts...

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  • Predator –
  • Preliminary hearing
    Preliminary hearing
    Within some criminal justice systems, a preliminary hearing is a proceeding, after a criminal complaint has been filed by the prosecutor, to determine whether there is enough evidence to require a trial...

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  • Prescription –
  • Probable cause
    Probable cause
    In United States criminal law, probable cause is the standard by which an officer or agent of the law has the grounds to make an arrest, to conduct a personal or property search, or to obtain a warrant for arrest, etc. when criminal charges are being considered. It is also used to refer to the...

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  • Probation
    Probation
    Probation literally means testing of behaviour or abilities. In a legal sense, an offender on probation is ordered to follow certain conditions set forth by the court, often under the supervision of a probation officer...

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  • Procedural defense
    Procedural defense
    In jurisprudence, procedural defenses are a form of defense, via which a party argues that it should not be held liable for a legal charge or claim brought against it. In common law jurisdictions the term has applications in both criminal law and civil law...

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  • Prosecutorial misconduct
    Prosecutorial misconduct
    In jurisprudence, prosecutorial misconduct is a procedural defense; via which, a defendant may argue that they should not be held criminally liable for actions which may have broken the law, because the prosecution acted in an "inappropriate" or "unfair" manner. Such arguments may involve...

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  • Provocation
    Provocation (legal)
    In criminal law, provocation is a possible defense by excuse or exculpation alleging a sudden or temporary loss of control as a response to another's provocative conduct sufficient to justify an acquittal, a mitigated sentence or a conviction for a lesser charge...

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  • Provocation in English law
    Provocation in English law
    In English law, provocation was a mitigatory defence alleging a total loss of control as a response to another's provocative conduct sufficient to convert what would otherwise have been murder into manslaughter. It does not apply to any other offence. It was abolished on 4 October 2010 by of the...

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  • Public order –
  • Resisting unlawful arrest
    Resisting unlawful arrest
    Resisting unlawful arrest is a possible justification for breaking the law. Defendants who use this defense are arguing that they should not be held guilty for a crime, since the actions taken were intended to protect them from an unlawful arrest....

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  • Restorative justice
    Restorative justice
    Restorative justice is an approach to justice that focuses on the needs of victims, offenders, as well as the involved community, instead of satisfying abstract legal principles or punishing the offender...

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  • Selective prosecution
    Selective prosecution
    In jurisprudence, selective prosecution is a procedural defense in which a defendant argues that they should not be held criminally liable for breaking the law, as the criminal justice system discriminated against them by choosing to prosecute...

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  • Self defense and defense of others
    Self-defense (theory)
    The right of self-defense is the right for civilians acting on their own behalf to engage in violence for the sake of defending one's own life or the lives of others, including the use of deadly force.- Theory :The...

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  • Sentence
    Sentence (law)
    In law, a sentence forms the final explicit act of a judge-ruled process, and also the symbolic principal act connected to his function. The sentence can generally involve a decree of imprisonment, a fine and/or other punishments against a defendant convicted of a crime...

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  • Sharia
    Sharia
    Sharia law, is the moral code and religious law of Islam. Sharia is derived from two primary sources of Islamic law: the precepts set forth in the Quran, and the example set by the Islamic prophet Muhammad in the Sunnah. Fiqh jurisprudence interprets and extends the application of sharia to...

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  • Social control
    Social control
    Social control refers generally to societal and political mechanisms or processes that regulate individual and group behavior, leading to conformity and compliance to the rules of a given society, state, or social group. Many mechanisms of social control are cross-cultural, if only in the control...

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  • * Stare decisis
    Stare decisis
    Stare decisis is a legal principle by which judges are obliged to respect the precedents established by prior decisions...

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  • Star Chamber
    Star Chamber
    The Star Chamber was an English court of law that sat at the royal Palace of Westminster until 1641. It was made up of Privy Counsellors, as well as common-law judges and supplemented the activities of the common-law and equity courts in both civil and criminal matters...

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  • Statutory law
    Statutory law
    Statutory law or statute law is written law set down by a legislature or by a legislator .Statutes may originate with national, state legislatures or local municipalities...

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  • Suicide
    Suicide
    Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Suicide is often committed out of despair or attributed to some underlying mental disorder, such as depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, alcoholism, or drug abuse...

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  • Summary offence
    Summary offence
    A summary offence is a criminal act in some common law jurisdictions that can be proceeded with summarily, without the right to a jury trial and/or indictment .- United States :...

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  • Trial
    Trial (law)
    In law, a trial is when parties to a dispute come together to present information in a tribunal, a formal setting with the authority to adjudicate claims or disputes. One form of tribunal is a court...

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  • Trial by jury
    Trial by Jury
    Trial by Jury is a comic opera in one act, with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert. It was first produced on 25 March 1875, at London's Royalty Theatre, where it initially ran for 131 performances and was considered a hit, receiving critical praise and outrunning its...

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  • Trial de novo
    Trial de novo
    In law, the expression trial de novo means a "new trial" by a different tribunal...

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  • Warrant –
  • Writ
    Writ
    In common law, a writ is a formal written order issued by a body with administrative or judicial jurisdiction; in modern usage, this body is generally a court...

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  • Writ of Habeas Corpus –
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