In law Law is a system of rules, usually enforced through a set of institutions. Laws can shape or reflect politics, economics and society in numerous ways and serves as a primary social mediator of relations between people. Contract law regulates everything from buying a bus ticket to trading on derivatives markets. Property law defines rights and, a sentence forms the final act of a judge A judge, or arbiter of justice, is a lead who presides over a court of law, either alone or as part of a panel of judges. The powers, functions, method of appointment, discipline, and training of judges vary widely across different jurisdictions. The judge is like an umpire in a game and conducts the trial impartially and in an open court. The-ruled process, and also the symbolic principal act connected to his function. The sentence generally involves a decree of imprisonment A prison is a place in which people are physically confined and, usually, deprived of a range of personal freedoms. Other terms are penitentiary, correctional facility, and jail (or gaol), although in the United States "jail" and "prison" refer to different subtypes of correctional facility. Jails are conventionally, a fine The most usual use of the term, fine, relates to a financial punishment for the commission of minor crimes or as the settlement of a claim. A synonym, typically used in civil law actions, is mulct and/or other punishments Punishment is the practice of imposing something negative or unpleasant on a person or animal or property, usually in response to disobedience, defiance, or behavior deemed morally wrong by individual, governmental, or religious principles against a defendant A defendant or defender is any party who is required to answer the complaint of a plaintiff or pursuer in a civil lawsuit before a court, or any party who has been formally charged or accused of violating a criminal statute. (Note that American lawyers and judges often pronounce the word slightly differently than is common in standard American convicted In law, a conviction is the verdict that results when a court of law finds a defendant guilty of a crime of a crime Crime is the breach of rules or laws for which some governing authority can ultimately prescribe a conviction. Individual human societies may each define crime and crimes differently. While every crime violates the law, not every violation of the law counts as a crime; for example: breaches of contract and of other civil law may rank as ". Those imprisoned for multiple crimes, will serve a consecutive sentence (in which the period of imprisonment equals the sum of all the sentences), a concurrent sentence (in which the period of imprisonment equals the length of the longest sentence), or somewhere in between, sometimes subject to a cap. If a sentence gets reduced to a less harsh punishment, then the sentence is said to have been "mitigated". Rarely (depending on circumstances) murder Murder, as defined in common law countries, is the unlawful killing of another human being with intent , and generally this state of mind distinguishes murder from other forms of unlawful homicide (such as manslaughter). As the loss of a human being inflicts enormous grief upon the individuals close to the victim, as well as the fact that the charges are "mitigated" and reduced to manslaughter The law generally differentiates between levels of criminal culpability based on the mens rea, or state of mind. This is particularly true within the law of homicide, where murder requires either the intent to kill - a state of mind called malice, or malice aforethought - or the knowledge that one's actions are likely to result in death; charges. However, in certain legal systems, a defendant may be punished beyond the terms of the sentence, e.g. social stigma, loss of governmental benefits, or collectively, the collateral consequences of criminal charges Collateral consequences of criminal charges, known as the "Four C's" in legal parlance , are the results of arrest, prosecution or conviction that are not part of the sentence imposed.

History

The first use of this word with this meaning was in Roman law The term Roman law denotes the legal system of ancient Rome, and the legal developments which occurred before the seventh century AD — when the Roman–Byzantine state adopted Greek as the language of government. The development of Roman law comprises more than a thousand years of jurisprudence — from the Twelve Tables to the Corpus Juris, where it indicated the opinion of a jurist A jurist or jurisconsult is a professional who studies, develops, applies, or otherwise deals with the law. The term is widely used in American English, but in the United Kingdom and many Commonwealth countries it has only historical and specialist usage. In most of Continental Europe any person who possesses a degree in law and works on a given question, expressed in written or in oral responsa. It was also the opinion of senators The Roman Senate was a political institution in ancient Rome. It was one of the most enduring institutions in Roman history, being founded in the first days of the city . It survived the fall of the kings in 509 BC, the fall of the Roman Republic in the first century BC, the split of the Roman Empire in 395 AD, and the fall of the Western Roman (that was translated into the senatus consultus). It finally was also the decision of the judging organ (both in civil and in penal trials), as well as the decision of the Arbiters (in arbitration Arbitration, a form of alternative dispute resolution , is a legal technique for the resolution of disputes outside the courts, wherein the parties to a dispute refer it to one or more persons (the "arbitrators", "arbiters" or "arbitral tribunal"), by whose decision (the "award") they agree to be bound. It).

In modern Latin systems the sentence is mainly the final act of any procedure in which a judge, or more generally an organ is called to express his evaluation, therefore it can be issued practically in any field of law requiring a function of evaluation of something by an organ.

Classification

Sentences are variously classified depending on

• the legal field, or kind of action, or system it refers to:
  • civil, penal, administrative, canon, ..., sentence.
  • sentences of mere clearance, of condemnation, of constitution.
• the issuing organ (typically a monocratic judge or a court, or other figures that receive a legitimation by the system).
• the jurisdiction and the legal competence: single judges, courts, tribunals, appeals, supreme courts, constitutional courts, etc., meant as the various degrees of judgment and appeal.
• the content:
  • partial, cautelar, interlocutory, preliminar (sententia instructoria), definitive sentences.
  • sentence of absolutio (discharge) or condemnatio (briefly damnatio, also for other meanings - condemnation). The sentences of condemnation are also classified by the penalty they determine:
    • sentence of reclusion,
    • sentence of fee,
    • sententia agendi, sentence that impose a determined action (or a series of action) as a penalty for the illegal act. This kind of sentence became better developed and remained in wider use in common law Common law is law developed by judges through decisions of courts and similar tribunals , rather than through legislative statutes or executive branch action. A "common law system" is a legal system that gives great precedential weight to common law, on the principle that it is unfair to treat similar facts differently on different systems.

Philosophies

The sentence meted out depends on the philosophical principle used by the court and what the legal system regards as the purpose of punishment. The most common purposes of sentencing are:

• Retribution Retributive justice is a theory of justice that considers that punishment, if proportionate, is a morally acceptable response to crime, with an eye to the satisfaction and psychological benefits it can bestow to the aggrieved party, its intimates and society
• Deterrence Deterrence is often contrasted with retributivism, which holds that punishment is a necessary consequence of a crime and should be calculated based on the gravity of the wrong done
• Denunciation Denunciation in the context of sentencing philosophy refers to the disapproval of an act by society that is expressed by the imposition of a sentence. This can be considered as one of the purposes of sentencing, as well as being a possible justification for the imposition of a sentence
• Incapacitation Incapacitation in the context of sentencing philosophy refers to the effect of a sentence in terms of positively preventing future offending
• Rehabilitation The assumption of rehabilitation is that people are not permanently criminal and that it is possible to restore a criminal to a useful life, to a life in which they contribute to themselves and to society. A goal of rehabilitation is to prevent habitual offending, also known as criminal recidivism. Rather than punishing the harm out of a criminal,

Process

Usually the sentence comes after a process in which the deciding organ is put in condition to evaluate whether the analysed conduct complies or not with the legal systems The three major legal systems of the world today consist of civil law, common law and religious law. However, each country often develops variations on each system or incorporates many other features into the system, and eventually which aspects of the conduct might regard which laws. Depending on respective systems, the phases that precede the sentence may vary relevantly and the sentence can be resisted (by both parties) up to a given degree of appeal The specific procedures for appealing, including even whether there is a right of appeal from a particular type of decision, can vary greatly from country to country. Even within a jurisdiction, the nature of an appeal can vary greatly depending on the type of case. The sentence issued by the Appeal court of highest admitted degree immediately becomes the definitive sentence, as well as the sentence issued in minor degrees that is not resisted by the condemned or by the accusator (or is not resisted within a given time). The sentence usually has to be rendered of public domain (publicatio) and in most systems it has to be accompanied by the reasons for its content (a sort of story of the juridical reflections and evaluations that the judging organ used to produce it).

A sentence (even a definitive one) can be annulled in some given cases, that many systems usually pre-determine. The most frequent case is related to irregularities found ex-post in the procedure, the most éclatant is perhaps in penal cases, when a relevant (often discharging) proof is discovered after the definitive sentence.

In most systems the definitive sentence is unique, in the precise sense that no one can be judged more than once for the same action (apart, obviously, from appeal resistance).

Sentences are in many systems a source of law, as an authoritative interpretation of the law in front of concrete cases, thus quite as an extension of the ordinary formal documental system.

The sentence is generally issued by the judge in the name of (or on the behalf of) the superior authority of the state A state is a set of institutions that possess the authority to make the rules that govern the people in one or more societies, having internal and external sovereignty over a definite territory. In Max Weber's influential definition, it is that organization that has a "monopoly on the legitimate use of physical force within a given territory&.

See also

• Criminal sentencing in Canada
• Criminal sentencing in the United States In the United States, a judge sentences a person convicted of a crime. The length of the prison term depends upon multiple factors including the severity and type of the crime, state and/or federal sentencing guidelines, the convicted's criminal record, and the personal discretion of the judge. In addition, a few states, such as Kentucky, require
• Criminal costs Criminal costs are financial penalties awarded against convicted criminals, in addition to the sentence they receive, in recognition of the costs of the court in bringing the prosecution
• Incapacitation (penology) Incapacitation in the context of sentencing philosophy refers to the effect of a sentence in terms of positively preventing future offending
• Sentencing disparity Sentencing disparity is defined as "a form of unequal treatment that is of often of unexplained cause and is at least incongrous, unfair and disadvantaging in consequence". It is important to distinguish disparity from differences that arise due to legitimate use of discretion in the application of the law and those difference that arise

Categories: Sentencing (law) Categories: Punishment | Penology | Criminal procedure

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