Search results
Results From The WOW.Com Content Network
In law, a conviction is the determination by a court of law that a defendant is guilty of a crime. [1] A conviction may follow a guilty plea that is accepted by the court, a jury trial in which a verdict of guilty is delivered, or a trial by judge in which the defendant is found guilty. The opposite of a conviction is an acquittal (that is ...
A convict is "a person found guilty of a crime and sentenced by a court" or "a person serving a sentence in prison". [1] Convicts are often also known as "prisoners" or "inmates" or by the slang term "con", [2] while a common label for former convicts, especially those recently released from prison, is "ex-con" ("ex-convict").
In Canada and England and Wales, certain convicted persons may be designated as dangerous offenders and subject to a longer, or indefinite, term of imprisonment in order to protect the public. Dangerousness in law is a legal establishment of the risk that a person poses to
The Innocence Project, founded to exonerate those convicted wrongfully, has found more than 300 post-conviction DNA exonerations in the history of the United States. [14] Attorneys can file a motion to introduce strong new evidence to the courts.
Under common law, a person may use deadly force to defend against a deadly attack unless non-deadly force would suffice. Some jurisdictions establish a duty to retreat before using deadly force. In such jurisdictions, a non-aggressor has the duty to retreat from a threatening situation if this can be done with complete safety.
A person accused or convicted of a crime may suffer social consequences of a conviction, such as loss of a job and social stigma. These social consequences, whether or not they lead to convictions, can arise in countries where arrests and legal proceedings are matters of public record , thus disseminating the information about the event to the ...
After spending years behind bars for crimes they didn't commit, some men and women who have been wrongfully convicted have received their freedom. But as Erin Moriarty points out, for many ...
In the state of Washington, a person is found guilty of first degree murder when there is a premeditated intent to cause the death of another person. Murder in the first degree is a class A felony. [15] If a person is convicted of first degree murder, they will receive a life sentence. [16]