Sentence (law) in the context of "Denunciation (penology)"

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⭐ Core Definition: Sentence (law)

In criminal law, a sentence is the punishment for a crime ordered by a trial court after conviction in a criminal procedure, normally at the conclusion of a trial. A sentence may consist of imprisonment, a fine, or other sanctions. Sentences for multiple crimes may be a concurrent sentence, where sentences of imprisonment are all served together at the same time, or a consecutive sentence, in which the period of imprisonment is the sum of all sentences served one after the other. Additional sentences include intermediate, which allows an inmate to be free for about 8 hours a day for work purposes; determinate, which is fixed on a number of days, months, or years; and indeterminate or bifurcated, which mandates the minimum period be served in an institutional setting such as a prison followed by street time period of parole, supervised release or probation until the total sentence is completed.

If a sentence is reduced to a less harsh punishment, then the sentence is said to have been mitigated or commuted. Rarely, depending on circumstances, murder charges are mitigated and reduced to manslaughter charges. However, in certain legal systems, a defendant may be punished beyond the terms of the sentence, through phenomena including social stigma, loss of governmental benefits, or collectively, the collateral consequences of criminal charges.

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Sentence (law) in the context of Jury

A jury is a sworn body of people (jurors) convened to hear evidence, make findings of fact, and render an impartial verdict officially submitted to them by a court, or to set a penalty or judgment. Most trial juries are "petit juries", and consist of up to 15 people. A larger jury known as a grand jury has been used to investigate potential crimes and render indictments against suspects, and consists of between 16 and 23 jurors.

The jury system developed in England during the Middle Ages and is a hallmark of the English common law system. Juries are commonly used in countries whose legal systems derive from the British Empire, such as the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, Australia, and Ireland. They are not used in most other countries, whose legal systems are based upon European civil law or Islamic sharia law, although their use has been spreading. Instead, typically guilt is determined by a single person, usually a professional judge. Civil law systems that do not use juries may use lay judges instead.

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Sentence (law) in the context of Sentenced to death

Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty and formerly called judicial homicide, is the state-sanctioned killing of a person as punishment for actual or supposed misconduct. The sentence ordering that an offender be punished in such a manner is called a death sentence, and the act of carrying out the sentence is an execution. A prisoner who has been sentenced to death and awaits execution is condemned and is commonly referred to as being "on death row". Etymologically, the term capital (lit.'of the head', derived via the Latin capitalis from caput, "head") refers to execution by beheading, but executions are carried out by many methods.

Crimes that are punishable by death are known as capital crimes, capital offences, or capital felonies, and vary depending on the jurisdiction, but commonly include serious crimes against a person, such as murder, assassination, mass murder, child murder, aggravated rape, terrorism, aircraft hijacking, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide, along with crimes against the state such as attempting to overthrow government, treason, espionage, sedition, and piracy. Also, in some cases, acts of recidivism, aggravated robbery, and kidnapping, in addition to drug trafficking, drug dealing, and drug possession, are capital crimes or enhancements. However, states have also imposed punitive executions, for an expansive range of conduct, for political or religious beliefs and practices, for a status beyond one's control, or without employing any significant due process procedures. Judicial murder is the intentional and premeditated killing of an innocent person by means of capital punishment. For example, the executions following the show trials in the Soviet Union during the Great Purge of 1936–1938 were an instrument of political repression.

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Sentence (law) in the context of Penal labor

Penal labour or prison labour is a term for various kinds of forced labour that prisoners are required to perform, typically manual labour. The work may be light or hard, depending on the context. Forms of sentence involving penal labour have included involuntary servitude, penal servitude, and imprisonment with hard labour. The term may refer to several related scenarios: labour as a form of punishment, the prison system used as a means to secure labour, and labour as providing occupation for convicts. These scenarios are sometimes applied to those imprisoned for political, religious, war, or other reasons as well as to criminal convicts.

Large-scale implementations of penal labour include labour camps, prison farms, penal colonies, penal military units, penal transportation, or aboard prison ships.

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Sentence (law) in the context of Indentured servitude

Indentured servitude is a form of labor in which a person is contracted to work without salary for a specific number of years. The contract, called an "indenture", may be entered voluntarily for a prepaid lump sum, as payment for some good or service (e.g. travel), purported eventual compensation, or debt repayment. An indenture may also be imposed involuntarily as a judicial punishment. The practice has been compared to the similar institution of slavery, although there are differences.

Historically, in an apprenticeship, an apprentice worked with no pay for a master tradesman to learn a trade. This was often for a fixed length of time, usually seven years or less. Apprenticeship was not the same as indentureship, although many apprentices were tricked into falling into debt and thus having to indenture themselves for years more to pay off such sums.

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Sentence (law) in the context of Legal remedy

A legal remedy, also referred to as judicial relief or a judicial remedy, is the means with which a court of law, usually in the exercise of civil law jurisdiction, enforces a right, imposes a penalty, or makes another court order to impose its will in order to compensate for the harm of a wrongful act inflicted upon an individual.

In common law jurisdictions and mixed civil-common law jurisdictions, the law of remedies distinguishes between a legal remedy (e.g. a specific amount of monetary damages) and an equitable remedy (e.g. injunctive relief or specific performance). Another type of remedy available in these systems is declaratory relief, where a court determines the rights of the parties to action without awarding damages or ordering equitable relief. The type of legal remedies to be applied in specific cases depend on the nature of the wrongful act and its liability. In international human rights law, there is a right to an effective remedy.

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Sentence (law) in the context of Inmate

A prisoner, also known as an inmate or detainee, is a person who is deprived of liberty against their will. This can be by confinement or captivity in a prison or physical restraint. The term usually applies to one serving a sentence in prison.

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Sentence (law) in the context of Prison

A prison, also known as a jail, gaol, penitentiary, detention center, correction center, correctional facility, or remand center, is a facility where people are imprisoned under the authority of the state, usually as punishment for various crimes. They may also be used to house those awaiting trial (pre-trial detention). Prisons serve two primary functions within the criminal-justice system: holding people charged with crimes while they await trial, and confining those who have pleaded guilty or been convicted to serve out their sentences.

Prisons can also be used as a tool for political repression by authoritarian regimes who detain perceived opponents for political crimes, often without a fair trial or due process; this use is illegal under most forms of international law governing fair administration of justice. In times of war, belligerents or neutral countries may detain prisoners of war or detainees in military prisons or in prisoner-of-war camps. At any time, states may imprison civilians – sometimes large groups of civilians – in internment camps.

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Sentence (law) in the context of Collateral consequences of criminal charges

Collateral consequences of criminal conviction are the additional civil state penalties, mandated by statute, that attach to a criminal conviction. They are not part of the direct consequences of criminal conviction, such as prison, fines, or probation. They are the further civil actions by the state that are triggered as a consequence of the conviction.

In some jurisdictions, a judge, finding a defendant guilty of a crime, can order that no conviction be recorded, thereby relieving the person of the collateral consequences of a criminal conviction.

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