A posthumous trial or post-mortem trial is a
trial
In law, a trial is a coming together of Party (law), parties to a :wikt:dispute, dispute, to present information (in the form of evidence (law), evidence) in a tribunal, a formal setting with the authority to Adjudication, adjudicate claims or d ...
held after the
defendant
In court proceedings, a defendant is a person or object who is the party either accused of committing a crime in criminal prosecution or against whom some type of civil relief is being sought in a civil case.
Terminology varies from one jurisdic ...
's death. Posthumous trials can be held for a variety of reasons, including the legal declaration that the defendant was the one who committed the crime, to provide justice for society of family members of the victims, or to exonerate a wrongfully convicted person after their death. Due to the heavy cost, they are usually held only under extraordinary circumstances.
Notable posthumous trials
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Cadaver Synod
The Cadaver Synod (also called the Cadaver Trial; la, Synodus Horrenda) is the name commonly given to the ecclesiastical trial of Pope Formosus, who had been dead for about seven months, in the Basilica of St. John Lateran in Rome during January ...
of
Pope Formosus
Pope Formosus (896) was the bishop of Rome and ruler of the Papal States from 6 October 891 until his death on 4 April 896. His reign as pope was troubled, marked by interventions in power struggles over the Patriarchate of Constantinople, the ...
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Farinata degli Uberti
Manente degli Uberti (1212 – 11 November 1264), known as Farinata degli Uberti, was an Italian aristocrat and military leader of the Ghibelline faction in Florence. He was considered to be a heretic by some of his contemporaries, including Dant ...
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Pope Boniface VIII
Pope Boniface VIII ( la, Bonifatius PP. VIII; born Benedetto Caetani, c. 1230 – 11 October 1303) was the head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 24 December 1294 to his death in 1303. The Caetani, Caetani family was of b ...
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Retrial of Joan of Arc
The conviction of Joan of Arc in 1431 was posthumously investigated on appeal in the 1450s by Inquisitor-General Jean Bréhal at the request of Joan's surviving family – her mother Isabelle Romée and two of her brothers, Jean and Pierre. T ...
, overturned her earlier heresy conviction.
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Francesco Maria Carafa 250px, Francesco Maria Carafa.
Francesco Maria Carafa (died 1642) was an Italian nobleman, 5th Duke of Nochera, a Knight of the Order of the Golden Fleece and was viceroy of Aragon and Navarre and a military commander who commanded troops loyal ...
, resulting in exoneration.
* The
Wanli Emperor
The Wanli Emperor (; 4 September 1563 – 18 August 1620), personal name Zhu Yijun (), was the 14th Emperor of the Ming dynasty, reigned from 1572 to 1620. "Wanli", the era name of his reign, literally means "ten thousand calendars". He was the ...
, seized and denounced by Beijing's
Red Guards
Red Guards () were a mass student-led paramilitary social movement mobilized and guided by Chairman Mao Zedong in 1966 through 1967, during the first phase of the Cultural Revolution, which he had instituted.Teiwes According to a Red Guard lead ...
in 1966.
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Wu Xun Wu Xun (Chinese: 武训; Pinyin: Wǔ Xùn; 1838–1896) was a Chinese educational reformer who pioneered free popular education in the country and became a hero of Chinese liberalism. In the 1950s and 1960s during Mao Zedong's Cultural Revolution hi ...
[MacFarquhar, Roderick. "Red Terror." ]Mao's Last Revolution
''Mao's Last Revolution'' is a 2006 book by Roderick MacFarquhar and Michael Schoenhals released by Belknap Press.
Harvard University Press presented it as " acFarquhar and Schoenhalsexplain why Mao launched the Cultural Revolution, and show his M ...
. Cambridge: Harvard University. 2006. p. 120.
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Henry Plummer
Henry Plummer (1832–1864) was a Prospecting, prospector, lawman, and outlaw in the Western United States, American West in the 1850s and 1860s, who was known to have killed several men. He was elected sheriff of Bannack, Montana, in 1863 an ...
, resulting in a mistrial.
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Sergei Magnitsky
Sergei Leonidovich Magnitsky (russian: Сергeй Леонидович Магнитский, ; 8 April 1972 – 16 November 2009) was a Ukrainian-born Russian tax advisor responsible for exposing corruption and misconduct by Russian gover ...
See also
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Kangaroo court
A kangaroo court is a court that ignores recognized standards of law or justice, carries little or no official standing in the territory within which it resides, and is typically convened ad hoc. A kangaroo court may ignore due process and come ...
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Trial in absentia
Trial in absentia is a criminal proceeding in a court of law in which the person who is subject to it is not physically present at those proceedings. is Latin for "in (the) absence". Its meaning varies by jurisdiction and legal system.
In comm ...
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Declared death in absentia
A presumption of death occurs when a person is thought to be dead by a group of people despite the absence of direct proof of the person's death, such as the finding of remains (e.g., a corpse or skeleton) attributable to that person. Such a pre ...
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Show trial
A show trial is a public trial in which the judicial authorities have already determined the guilt or innocence of the defendant. The actual trial has as its only goal the presentation of both the accusation and the verdict to the public so th ...
References
Criminal justice
Legal aspects of death
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