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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.
The adversarial system or adversary system or accusatorial system [1] or accusatory system [2] is a legal system used in the common law countries where two advocates represent their parties' case or position before an impartial person or group of people, usually a judge or jury, who attempt to determine the truth and pass judgment accordingly.
An inquisitorial system is a legal system in which the court, or a part of the court, is actively involved in investigating the facts of the case.This is distinct from an adversarial system, in which the role of the court is primarily that of an impartial referee between the prosecution and the defense.
Currently, in many countries with a democratic system and the rule of law, criminal procedure puts the burden of proof on the prosecution – that is, it is up to the prosecution to prove that the defendant is guilty beyond any reasonable doubt, as opposed to having the defense prove that they are innocent, and any doubt is resolved in favor of ...
A prosecutor is a legal representative of the prosecution in states with either the adversarial system, which is adopted in common law, or inquisitorial system, which is adopted in civil law. The prosecution is the legal party responsible for presenting the case in a criminal trial against the defendant, an individual accused of breaking the ...
An affirmative defense is different from a "negating defense". A negating defense is one which tends to disprove an element of the plaintiff's or prosecutor's case. An example might be a mistake of fact claim in a prosecution for intentional drug possession, where the defendant asserts that he or she mistakenly believed that the object ...
Strictly speaking, however, it could be argued that intoxication is not a defense, but a denial of mens rea; [10] the main difference being that a defense accepts the mens rea and actus reus of an offence are present. With intoxication, there is no acceptance of the mens rea of the offence. For offences of basic intent, the act itself is ...
In a criminal trial, a defendant is a person accused of committing an offense (a crime; an act defined as punishable under criminal law).The other party to a criminal trial is usually a public prosecutor, but in some jurisdictions, private prosecutions are allowed.