Sentences with phrase «fact of acquittal»

It may, of course, be possible to sue the complainant for defamation or even to bring an action for malicious prosecution; a lawyer would have to advise on this, but the mere fact of acquittal is certainly not enough to found an action.

Not exact matches

Making reference to the Courts Act of 1993 (Act 459), Mr Justice Ofoe said Section 31 (2) holds that «an appellate court, on hearing an appeal in a criminal case, shall allow the appeal if the appellate court considers (a) that the verdict or conviction or acquittal ought to be set aside on the ground that it is unreasonable or can not be supported having regard to the evidence, or (b) that the judgement in question ought to be set aside as a wrong decision on a question of law or fact, or (c) that there was a miscarriage of justice, and in any other case shall dismiss the appeal.»

In fact, she says an acquittal could even be bad news for a person subsequently found civilly liable since courts are more likely to impose punitive damages for someone who has escaped any other form of punishment for their actions.

The hard question is determining what a jury's acquittal «necessarily decided» in particular facts and circumstances, given that a jury verdict in a criminal case typically only determines if the jury convicted, acquitted, or hung on each of the charges presented to it in the indictment and not dismissed before tiral.

There is a substantial body of case law on whether prosecution for a crime with elements A, B, and C bars prosecution for a crime with different elements arising from the same facts and circumstances (e.g. if acquittal of a lesser included offense whose elements must all be proved to convict on the more severe offense provides double jeopardy protection), that wouldn't be directly applicable in my alternative scenario because the offense tried the first time and the second would have exactly the same elements.

In that sense, the most accurate description of the jury's paradoxical authority to act on its own in disregard of the law even while it is charged with following the law is the raw power to bring in a verdict of acquittal in the teeth of the law and the facts.»

If that were the point on this appeal it would be doomed to failure from the outset because that is a question of fact and no appeal from an acquittal lies on a question of fact.

Both in the «solemn» and the «summary» acquittals, not proven is interpreted as indicating that the jury or judge, respectively, is not convinced of the innocence of the accused; in fact, they may be morally or even factually convinced that the accused is guilty, but do not find the proofs sufficient for a conviction under the elements of the crime on the jury instruction / verdict form.

The mere fact of the Appellant's acquittal was not enough, in the circumstances of this case, to warrant a finding against the Respondents.

The error rate for false acquittals should be considerably higher because of the presumption of innocence and the burden of beyond reasonable doubt, however, most defence lawyers would agree that the mere fact that their client is sitting in the box has them half convicted before the jury is empaneled.