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- Habeas corpus
- Latin: a court petition which orders that a person being detained be
produced before a judge for a hearing to decide whether the detention is
lawful. Habeas corpus was one of the concessions the British Monarch
made in the
Magna Carta and has stood as a basic individual right against
arbitrary arrest and imprisonment.
- Habitual offender
- A person who is convicted and sentenced for crimes over a period of time
and even after serving sentences of incarceration, such as demonstrates a
propensity towards criminal conduct. Reformation techniques fail to alter the
behaviour of the habitual offender. Many countries now have special laws that
require the long-term incarceration, without parole, of habitual offenders as
a means of protecting society in the face of an individual that appears unable
to comply with the law.
- Harassment
- Unsolicited words or conduct which tend to annoy, alarm or abuse another
person. An excellent alternate definition can be found in Canadian human
rights legislation as: "a course of vexatious comment or conduct that is known
or ought reasonably to be known to be unwelcome." Name-calling ("stupid",
"retard" or "dummy") is a common form of harassment. (See also
sexual harassment.)
- Hearsay
- Any evidence that is offered by a witness of which they do not have direct
knowledge but, rather, their testimony is based on what others have said to
them. For example, if Bob heard from Susan about an accident that Susan
witnessed but that Bob had not, and Bob attempted to repeat Susan's story in
court, it could be objected to as "hearsay." The basic rule, when testifying
in court, is that you can only provide information of which you have direct
knowledge. In other words, hearsay evidence is not allowed. Hearsay evidence
is also referred to as "second-hand evidence" or as "rumor." You are able to
tell a court what you heard, to repeat the rumor, and testify that, in fact,
the story you heard was told to you, but under the hearsay rule, your
testimony would not be evidence of the actual facts of the story but only that
you heard those words spoken.
- Holograph will
- A will
written entirely in the
testator's
handwriting and not witnessed. Some states recognize holograph
wills, other
do not. Still other states will recognize a
will as
"holograph" if only part of it is in the
testator's
handwriting (the other part being type-written).
- Homicide
- The word includes all occasions where one human being, by act or omission,
takes away the life of another.
Murder and
manslaughter
are different kinds of homicides. Executing a death-row inmate is another form
of homicide, but one which is excusable in the eyes of the law. Another
excusable homicide is where a law enforcement officer shoots and kills a
suspect who draws a weapon or shoots at that officer.
- Hostile witness
- During an
examination-in-chief, a lawyer is not allowed to ask
leading
questions of their own
witness.
But, if that witness openly shows hostility against the interests (or the
person) that the lawyer represents, the lawyer may ask the court to declare
the witness "hostile", after which, as an exception of the
examination-in-chief rules, the lawyer may ask their own witness leading
questions.
- Hung jury
- A jury is required to make a unanimous or near unanimous
verdict.
When the jurors, after full debate and discussion, are unable to agree on a
verdict and are deadlocked with differences of opinion that appear to be
irreconcilable, it is said to be a "hung jury". The result is a
mistrial.
- Husband-wife privilege
- A special right that married persons have to keep communications between
them secret and even inaccessible to a court of law. While this privilege may
have been varied in some states, it has always been held to be lifted where
one spouse commits a crime on the other. Similar to the
client-solicitor privilege.
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