Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
The Supreme Court has not explicitly decided whether a defendant's pre-arrest silence may be introduced as substantive evidence of guilt (i.e., may be used in the government's case-in-chief, even if the defendant chooses not to testify). A three-justice plurality of the Court, in Salinas v.
Rochin v. California, 342 U.S. 165 (1952), was a case decided by the Supreme Court of the United States that added behavior that "shocks the conscience" into tests of what violates due process clause of the 14th Amendment. [1]
"Guilt" is the obligation of a person who has violated a moral standard to bear the sanctions imposed by that moral standard. In legal terms, guilt means having been found to have violated a criminal law, [1] though the law also raises 'the issue of defences, pleas, the mitigation of offences, and the defeasibility of claims'. [4]
In criminal law, mens rea (/ ˈ m ɛ n z ˈ r eɪ ə /; Law Latin for "guilty mind" [1]) is the mental state of a defendant who is accused of committing a crime. In common law jurisdictions, most crimes require proof both of mens rea and actus reus ("guilty act") before the defendant can be found guilty.
It has been noted that the word, culpability, "ordinarily has normative force, for in nonlegal English, a person is culpable only if he is justly to blame for his conduct". [1] The guilt principle requires that in order to convict a person it is necessary to ascertain his voluntary or reckless behaviour, Strict Liability being prohibited.
The terms actus reus and mens rea developed in English Law are derived from a principle stated by Edward Coke, namely, actus non facit reum nisi mens sit rea, [1] which means: "an act does not make a person guilty unless (their) mind is also guilty"; hence, the general test of guilt is one that requires proof of fault, culpability or ...
In United States law, an Alford plea, also called a Kennedy plea in West Virginia, [1] an Alford guilty plea, [2] [3] [4] and the Alford doctrine, [5] [6] [7] is a guilty plea in criminal court, [8] [9] [10] whereby a defendant in a criminal case does not admit to the criminal act and asserts innocence, but accepts imposition of a sentence.
This list of U.S. states by Alford plea usage documents usage of the form of guilty plea known as the Alford plea in each of the U.S. states in the United States. An Alford plea (also referred to as Alford guilty plea [1] [2] [3] and Alford doctrine [4] [5] [6]) in the law of the United States is a guilty plea in criminal court, [7] [8] [9] where the defendant does not admit the act and ...