A grand jury is a jury—a group of citizens—empowered by law to conduct legal proceedings, investigate potential criminal conduct, and determine whether criminal charges should be brought. A grand jury may subpoena physical evidence or a person to testify. A grand jury is separate from the courts, which do not preside over its functioning.
A jury trial, or trial by jury, is a legal proceeding in which a jury makes a decision or findings of fact. It is distinguished from a bench trial in which a judge or panel of judges makes all decisions.
The Assize of Clarendon was an act of Henry II of England in 1166 that began a transformation of English law and led to trial by jury in common law countries worldwide, and that established assize courts.
The Central Criminal Court of England and Wales, commonly referred to as the Old Bailey after the street on which it stands, is a criminal court building in central London, one of several that house the Crown Court of England and Wales. The street outside follows the route of the ancient wall around the City of London, which was part of the fortification's bailey, hence the metonymic name.
The Bloody Assizes were a series of trials started at Winchester on 25 August 1685 in the aftermath of the Battle of Sedgemoor, which ended the Monmouth Rebellion in England.
Alice, Lady Lisle, commonly known as Alicia Lisle or Dame Alice Lyle, was a landed lady of the English county of Hampshire, who was executed for harbouring fugitives after the defeat of the Monmouth Rebellion at the Battle of Sedgemoor. While she seems to have leaned to Royalism, she combined this with a decided sympathy for religious dissent. She is known to history as Lady Lisle although she has no claim to the title; her husband was a member of the "Other House" created by Oliver Cromwell and "titles" deriving from that fact were often used after the Restoration.
Circuit courts are court systems in several common law jurisdictions. It may refer to:
Staffordshire is a landlocked county in the West Midlands of England. It adjoins Cheshire to the north west, Derbyshire and Leicestershire to the east, Warwickshire to the south east, West Midlands and Worcestershire to the south, and Shropshire to the west. The historic county of Staffordshire includes Wolverhampton, Walsall, and West Bromwich, these three being removed for administrative purposes in 1974 to the new West Midlands authority. The resulting administrative area of Staffordshire has a narrow southwards protrusion that runs west of West Midlands to the border of Worcestershire. The city of Stoke-on-Trent was removed from the admin area in the 1990s to form a unitary authority, but is still part of Staffordshire for ceremonial and traditional purposes.
William Palmer, also known as the Rugeley Poisoner or the Prince of Poisoners, was an English doctor found guilty of murder in one of the most notorious cases of the 19th century. Charles Dickens called Palmer "the greatest villain that ever stood in the Old Bailey".
Nisi prius is a historical term in English law. In the 19th century, it came to be used to denote generally all legal actions tried before judges of the King's Bench Division and in the early twentieth century for actions tried at assize by a judge given a commission. Used in that way, the term has had no currency since the abolition of assizes in 1971.
In France, a cour d'assises, or Court of Assizes or Assize Court, is a criminal trial court with original and appellate limited jurisdiction to hear cases involving defendants accused of felonies, meaning crimes as defined in French law. It is the only French court that uses a jury trial.
Sir Alexander James Edmund Cockburn, 12th Baronet was a British jurist and politician who served as the Lord Chief Justice for 21 years. He heard some of the leading causes célèbres of the nineteenth century.
The court of assizes is the trial court which tries the most serious crimes in the judicial system of Belgium. It is the highest Belgian court with criminal jurisdiction; as such, it is the only Belgian court that can sentence someone to life imprisonment. The courts of assizes are not permanent courts; a new court of assizes is assembled for each new trial. There is a court of assizes in each of the ten provinces of Belgium, as well as one in the arrondissement of Brussels-Capital which is not part of any province. Further below, an overview is provided of the eleven courts of assizes and their seats. They are the only courts in Belgium for which the provinces are used as territorial subdivisions. They are also the only courts in Belgium that hold jury trials. The jury acts as sole trier of fact, but decides on the penalty together with the judges. The trial by jury of certain crimes is laid down in article 150 of the Belgian Constitution. The Belgian courts of assizes have the same origin as their French namesakes.
Stephen Dugdale (1640?-1683) was an English informer, and self-proclaimed discoverer of parts of the Popish Plot. He perjured himself on numerous occasions, giving false testimony which led to the conviction and execution of numerous innocent men, notably the Catholic nobleman Lord Stafford, the Jesuit Provincial Thomas Whitbread, and the prominent barrister Richard Langhorne.
The courts of assize, or assizes, were periodic courts held around England and Wales until 1972, when together with the quarter sessions they were abolished by the Courts Act 1971 and replaced by a single permanent Crown Court. The assizes exercised both civil and criminal jurisdiction, though most of their work was on the criminal side. The assizes heard the most serious cases, most notably those subject to capital punishment or, later, life imprisonment. Other serious cases were dealt with by the quarter sessions, while the more minor offences were dealt with summarily by justices of the peace in petty sessions.
The Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Lancaster is the account of a series of English witch trials that took place on 18–19 August 1612, commonly known as the Lancashire witch trials. Except for one trial held in York they took place at Lancaster Assizes. Of the twenty men and women accused – amongst them the Pendle witches and the Samlesbury witches – eleven were found guilty and subsequently hanged; one was sentenced to stand in the pillory, and the rest were acquitted.
The history of trial by jury in England is influential because many English and later British colonies adopted the English common law system in which trial by jury plays an important part.
R v Dudley and Stephens (1884) 14 QBD 273, DC is a leading English criminal case which established a precedent throughout the common law world that necessity is not a defence to a charge of murder. The case concerned survival cannibalism following a shipwreck, and its purported justification on the basis of a custom of the sea.
George Smith (1805–1874), popularly known as Throttler Smith, was an English hangman from 1840 until 1872. He was born in Rowley Regis in the English West Midlands, where he performed the majority of his executions. Although from a good family he became involved with gangs and petty crime in his early life. He was himself arrested and was imprisoned in Stafford Gaol on several occasions for theft.
Andrew Bromwich was an English Roman Catholic priest. He was a survivor of the Popish Plot, and the founder of the Oscott Mission in Staffordshire, which later became St. Mary's College, Oscott.
