A plea bargain, also known as “negotiating a plea,” is an agreement between the prosecution and the defendant where the defendant agrees to plead guilty to the charges against them. A plea is a criminal law term referring to the accused...
criminal procedure
plea colloquy
A plea colloquy is the conversation between a judge and a criminal defendant after the defendant enters a plea of guilty or nolo contendere, but prior to the judge accepting the plea. The plea colloquy is intended to ensure that the defendant...
plead
To plead means to draft and serve a pleading or to file a pleading in court; to answer the opposing party’s plea; to make a plea. In civil lawsuits and petitions, the filing of any document (pleading) or the act of making an assertion or...
polygraph
A polygraph test–popularly known as a lie detector test–is a machine that measures a person’s physiological responses when they respond to questions. According to the American Psychological Association (APA), polygraph tests measure a person’...
Ponzi scheme
Ponzi schemes are a type of investment fraud in which investors are promised artificially high rates of return with little or no risk. Original investors and the perpetrators of the fraud are paid off by funds from later investors, but there...
posse comitatus
Posse comitatus is a Latin phrase meaning “the power of the county.” Posse comitatus describes a group of citizens who are called upon to assist a sheriff in keeping the peace, to conduct a rescue, or to apprehend a criminal. The ability of a...
post mortem
Post mortem is Latin for "after death." Some common uses of the term “post-mortem” in a legal sense include the following:
Post-mortem tax planning involves creating a plan to reduce tax liability for the estate and its beneficiaries...preliminary hearing
A preliminary hearing, also called a “probable cause hearing,” is an adversarial proceeding conducted by a judge or magistrate (and not a jury) to determine if the prosecution has enough evidence to go to trial.The hearing is limited to the...
presentment
1) A demand for payment of a promissory note when it is due. The Uniform Commercial Code § 3-501 defines Presentment as: “a demand made by or on behalf of a person entitled to enforce an instrument (i) to pay the instrument made to the drawee or a...
presumption of innocence
A presumption of innocence means that any defendant in a criminal trial is assumed to be innocent until they have been proven guilty. As such, a prosecutor is required to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the person committed the crime if that...