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53 Legal defence topics matching:
Filter this Collection| x name | x image | x Used in criminal trial(s) | x Used in appeals | x article |
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| x Judgement | ||||
| x Abuse defense |
The abuse defense is a criminal law defense, sometimes termed as "innovative defense", by which defendants may argue that they should not be held criminally liable for breaking the law, as they were abused whether as physical abuse or psychological...
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| x Irresistible impulse | Virginia v. Lorena Bobbitt |
In criminal law, irresistible impulse is a defense by excuse, in this case some sort of insanity, in which the defendant argues that they should not be held criminally liable for their actions that broke the law, because they could not control those...
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| x Idiot defense |
The idiot defense is a satirical term for a legal strategy where a defendant claims innocence by virtue of having been ignorant of facts of which the defendant would normally be expected to be aware. Other terms used for this tactic include "dumb...
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| x Ambush defence |
An ambush defence is one in which defence evidence - notably from expert witnesses - has not been adduced in advance to the prosecuting authorities, leading to their inability to rebut it. The term is used in United Kingdom jurisprudence. Since 1987...
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| x Procedural defense |
In jurisprudence, procedural defenses are a form of defense, via which a party argues that they should not be held liable for a legal charge or claim brought against them. In common law jurisdictions the term has applications in both criminal law...
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| x 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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| x Nuremberg Defense |
The Nuremberg Defense is a legal defense that essentially states that the defendant was "only following orders" ("Befehl ist Befehl", literally "order is order") and is therefore not responsible for his crimes. The defense was most famously employed...
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| x Innovative defense |
Innovative defenses (the invention of which is sometimes called creative lawyering) are relatively new and untried defenses for having committed a criminal act. Being innovative, there is little or no precedent bearing upon them. Such defenses...
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| x 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 ...
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| x Mistake |
A mistake of fact may sometimes offer exculpation (as in excuse) by allowing a criminal defendant some relief from liability for having broken the law. This is unlike a mistake of law, which is not usually a defense.
Most criminal law systems in...
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| x Automatism |
In the Criminal Law, automatism is a defense to liability. Except in the case of strict liability offences, a crime must contain two elements: the actus reus or "guilty act", and the mens rea or "guilty mind". This defense seeks to prove that the...
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| x Mistake of law |
Mistake of law is a legal principle referring to one or more errors that were made by a person in understanding how the applicable law applied to their past activity that is under analysis by a court. In jurisdictions that use the term, it is...
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| x Mistaken identity |
Mistaken identity is a defense in criminal law which claims the actual innocence of the criminal defendant, and attempts to undermine evidence of guilt by asserting that any eyewitness to the crime incorrectly thought that they saw the defendant,...
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| x Self-defense |
The right of self-defense (also called, when it applies to the defense of another, alter ego defense, defense of others, defense of a third person) is the right for civilians acting on their own behalf to engage in violence for the sake of defending...
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| x Graymail |
Graymail is the threatened revelation of state secrets, in order to manipulate legal proceedings. It is distinct from blackmail, which may include threats of revelation against, and manipulation of, any private individual. Graymail is used as a...
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| x Duty to retreat |
In the criminal law, the duty to retreat is a specific component which sometimes appears in the defence of self-defence, and which must be addressed if the defendant is to prove that his or her conduct was justified. In those jurisdictions where the...
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| x Actual innocence |
Actual innocence is the most widely used - yet often the least studied - defense to crime. Most law school criminal law courses focus on defenses that apply where the accused in fact committed a criminal act, but presents an excuse that eliminates...
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| x Frameup |
A frameup or setup is an American term referring to the act of framing someone, that is, providing false evidence or false testimony in order to falsely prove someone guilty of a crime. It is likely to derive from the English word frame meaning to...
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| x Falsified evidence |
Falsified evidence, forged evidence or tainted evidence or misleading by suppressing evidence unfavourable for the police/prosecution, is used to either convict an innocent person, or to guarantee conviction of a guilty person. In Britain this is...
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| x 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...
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| x Selective prosecution |
In politics, selective prosecution refers to the partisan use of government resources to punish political enemies, as has been claimed in the prosecution of Alabama Governor Don Siegelman, which was part of the dismissal of U.S. attorneys...
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| x Public interest defense |
In the context of secrecy laws, a public interest defense is a defense which allows a defendant who disclosed classified or protected information to avoid criminality, if he can establish that the public interest in disclosure of the information...
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| x Black rage |
In the USA, black rage refers to a purported psychological phenomena and innovative defense proposed, but not used, for the 1994 Colin Ferguson mass murder trial. Ferguson's lawyers argued that he should not be held criminally liable, for actions...
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| x Mental disorder defence |
In the criminal laws of Australia and Canada, the defence of mental disorder (sometimes called the defence of mental illness) is a legal defence by excuse, by which a defendant may argue they should not be held criminally liable for breaking the law...
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| x Qualified immunity |
Qualified immunity is a doctrine in U.S. federal law that arises in cases brought against state officials under 42 U.S.C Section 1983 and against federal officials under Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents, 403 U.S. 388 (1971). Qualified immunity...
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| x Gay panic defense |
The gay panic defense is a legal defense against charges of assault or murder. A defendant using the gay panic defense claims that he acted in a state of violent temporary insanity because of a little-known psychiatric condition called homosexual...
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| x Consent |
Consent refers to the provision of approval or assent, particularly and especially after thoughtful consideration.
Consent can be either express or implied. For example, participation in a contact sport usually implies consent to contact by other...
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| x Necessity |
In U.S. criminal law, necessity may be either a possible justification or an exculpation for breaking the law. Except for a few statutory exemptions and in some medical cases there is no corresponding defense in English law. Defendants seeking to...
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| x Defense of infancy |
The defense of infancy is a form of defense known as an excuse so that defendants falling within the definition of an "infant" are excluded from criminal liability for their actions, if at the relevant time, they had not reached an age of criminal...
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| x Duress |
Duress or coercion (as a term of jurisprudence) is a possible legal defense, one of four of the most important justification defenses, by which defendants argue that they should not be held liable because the actions that broke the law were only...
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| x Drury v HMA |
If the accused successfully pleads provocation or diminished responsibility then his sentence is reduced from murder to culpable homicide.
The law was shaken up by the full bench decision of Drury. Normally, when prosecuting The Crown seeks to...
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| x Castle Doctrine in the United States |
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A Castle Doctrine (also known as a Castle Law or a Defense of Habitation Law) is an American legal concept arising from English Common Law that designates one's place of residence (or, in some states, any place legally occupied, such as one's car or...
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| x Battered woman defence |
The battered woman defense is a legal defense representing that the person accused of an assault or murder was suffering from battered person syndrome at the material time. Because the defense is almost invariably invoked by women, it is usually...
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| x Self-defence |
In the criminal law of Australia, self-defence may be a complete defence to criminal liability for causing injury or death in defence of the person or, to a limited extent, property, or a partial defence to murder if the degree of force used was...
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| x Insanity defence |
In criminal trials, the insanity defenses are possible defenses by excuse, an affirmative defense by which defendants argue that they should not be held criminally liable for breaking the law, as they were legally insane at the time of the...
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| x Settled insanity |
Settled insanity is defined as a permanent or "settled" condition caused by long-term substance abuse and differs from the temporary state of intoxication. In some United States jurisdictions "settled insanity" can be used as a basis for an insanity...
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| x Imperfect self-defense |
Imperfect self-defense is a common law doctrine of criminal procedure recognized by some jurisdictions whereby a defendant may mitigate punishment or sentencing imposed for a crime involving the use of deadly force by claiming, as a partial...
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| x Impossibility defense |
An Impossibility defense is a criminal defense occasionally used when a defendant is accused of a criminal attempt that failed only because the crime was factually or legally impossible to commit. Factual Impossibility is rarely an adequate defense...
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| x Justifiable homicide |
The United States' concept of justifiable homicide in criminal law stands on the dividing line between an excuse, justification and an exculpation. In other words, it takes a case that would otherwise have been a murder or another crime representing...
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| x The Matrix defense |
The Matrix defense is the term applied to several legal cases of a defense based on the movie The Matrix where reality is actually a computer generation, and that the real world is quite different from what reality is perceived to be.
In using this...
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| x Intoxication defense |
General intent crimes do not require an intent to break the law, just an unlawful act ("actus reus") and an intent to act in such a fashion. Specific intent crimes, however, require a certain mental state ("mens rea") to break the law. One such...
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| x Wikipedia defense |
The Wikipedia defense is a legal strategy that attempts to harvest the power of like-minded individuals on the internet for developing legal arguments and, possibly, to defray the cost of legal research.
In SCO v. IBM, IBM benefited from an...
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| x Urban survival syndrome |
The urban survival syndrome in United States jurisprudence, can be used either as a defense of justification or of excuse. This defense has been offered in a trial of a black defendant to justify or excuse criminal charges involving the use of...
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| x Justification |
Justification can be a defense in a prosecution for a criminal offense. When an act is justified, a person is not criminally liable even though his act would otherwise constitute an offense.
Justification in jurisprudence is not the same as an...
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| x Twinkie defense |
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Twinkie defense is a derisive label for an improbable legal defense. It is not an actual legal defense in jurisprudence, but a catchall term coined by reporters during their coverage of the trial of defendant Dan White for the murders of San...
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| x 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...
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| x Provocation |
In criminal law, provocation is a possible defense by excuse or exculpation alleging a sudden or temporary loss of control (a permanent loss of control is in the realm of insanity) as a response to another's provocative conduct sufficient to justify...
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| x Innocent owner defense |
An innocent owner defense is a concept in United States law providing for an affirmative defense that applies when an owner claims that they are innocent of a crime and therefore their property should not be forfeited. It is defined in section 983(d...
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| x Chewbacca defense |
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The Chewbacca defense is a fictional legal strategy used in episode 27 of South Park, "Chef Aid", which premiered on October 7, 1998, as the fourteenth episode of the second season. The aim of the argument is to deliberately confuse the jury. The...
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| x Right of self-defense in Maryland |
In the state of Maryland, the right of self-defense is primarily governed by case law and jury instructions. At present, the topic of self-defense is not explicitly covered by statute, though Title §4–101 allows citizens of the state to carry non...
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| x Diminished responsibility |
In criminal law, diminished responsibility (or diminished capacity) is a potential defense by excuse by which defendants argue that although they broke the law, they should not be held criminally liable for doing so, as their mental functions were ...
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| x Defense |
In civil proceedings and criminal prosecutions under the common law, a defendant may raise a defense (or defence) in an attempt to avoid criminal or civil liability. Besides contesting the accuracy of any allegation made against him or her in a...
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| x New evidence | Exoneration | |||
