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In criminal law, the right to counsel means a defendant has a legal right to have the assistance of counsel (i.e., lawyers) and, if the defendant cannot afford a lawyer, requires that the government appoint one or pay the defendant's legal expenses. The right to counsel is generally regarded as a constituent of the right to a fair trial ...
As stated in Brewer v.Williams, 430 U.S. 387 (1977), the right to counsel "means at least that a person is entitled to the help of a lawyer at or after the time that judicial proceedings have been initiated against him, 'whether by way of formal charge, preliminary hearing, indictment, information, or arraignment. ' " [2] Brewer goes on to conclude that once adversarial proceedings have begun ...
In United States law, ineffective assistance of counsel (IAC [1]) is a claim raised by a convicted criminal defendant asserting that the defendant's legal counsel performed so ineffectively that it deprived the defendant of the constitutional right guaranteed by the Assistance of Counsel Clause of the Sixth Amendment to the United States ...
Cuffed defendant before criminal court (Transportation Security Administration image) 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 jurisdiction to another.
In a civil proceeding or criminal prosecution under the common law or under statute, a defendant may raise a defense (or defence) [a] in an effort to avert civil liability or criminal conviction. A defense is put forward by a party to defeat a suit or action brought against the party, and may be based on legal grounds or on factual claims. [2] [3]
Judges in an adversarial system are impartial in ensuring the fair play of due process, or fundamental justice.Such judges decide, often when called upon by counsel rather than of their own motion, what evidence is to be admitted when there is a dispute; though in some common law jurisdictions judges play more of a role in deciding what evidence to admit into the record or reject.
The defendant was dead and could not be further prosecuted and at the time of the trip [Lewin] was not a witness nor a party to any pending litigation," his attorney, Brian Panish, said in an e-mail.
At common law, this was the name of a mixed action (springing from the earlier personal action of ejectione firmae) which lay for the recovery of the possession of land, and for damages for the unlawful detention of its possession. The action was highly fictitious, being in theory only for the recovery of a term for years, and brought by a ...