Clerk Of Assize
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Clerk Of Assize
A clerk of assize was a clerk of the assize courts of England and Wales, a position which existed from at least 1285 to 1971, when the Courts Act 1971 eliminated the assize courts. Originally the judges' private clerks tasked with enrolling pleas, the clerks grew into the heads of administrative departments tasked with keeping each assize running smoothly, and at one point sat as judges in their own right. History The first known reference to clerks of assize was made in 1285 when a procedural rule was created stating that justices on assize should be accompanied by a clerk tasked with enrolling pleas.Cockburn 1969, p. 316. The first few sets of assize clerks were the private clerks of the judges themselves, but by 1380 records show that the Western Circuit had a permanent employed clerk, Simon of Lichfield, a barrister of the Old Temple. From then onwards the position was normally filled by barristers. Although a 1541 statute prohibited a clerk from actively practicing as a barriste ...
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Court Clerk
A court clerk (British English: clerk to the court or clerk of the court ; American English: clerk of the court or clerk of court ) is an officer of the court whose responsibilities include maintaining records of a court and administering oaths to witnesses, jurors, and grand jurors as well as performing some quasi- secretarial duties. The records management duties of a court clerk include the acceptance of documents for filing with the court to become part of the court's official records, preserving and protecting those records, providing the general public with access to those records, and maintaining the docket, register of actions, and/or minutes of the court which list all filings and events in each case. These duties are important because the availability of legal relief often depends upon the timely filing of documents before applicable deadlines. United Kingdom England and Wales In the magistrates' courts of England and Wales, where the bench will usually have no ...
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Assizes
The assizes (), or courts of assize, 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 law (common law), civil and English criminal law, 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 (local county courts held four times per year), while the more minor offences were dealt with summarily by justice of the peace, justices of the peace in petty sessions (also known as magistrates' court (England and Wales), magistrates' courts). The word ''assize'' refers to the sittings or sessions (Old French ''assises'') of the judges, known as "justices of assize", who were judges who travelled across the seven circu ...
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Courts Act 1971
The Courts Act 1971The citation of this act by this short title is authorised bsection 59(1)of this act. (c. 23) is an act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, the purpose of which was to reform and modernise the courts system of England and Wales, as well as effectively separating the business of the criminal and civil courts. It established the Crown Court, introduced the posts of circuit judge and recorder, and abolished various local courts across the country. Many of its provisions have since been repealed by the Senior Courts Act 1981, but the essential structure described in the act is still in place. Provisions The first part of the act concerns the new Crown Court. It is established as part of the Supreme Court of Judicature, replacing courts of assize and quarter sessions. The appellate jurisdiction of these courts is transferred, and the new court given exclusive jurisdiction in "trial on indictment". It is described as a "superior court of record" for Engl ...
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Plea
In law, a plea is a defendant's response to a criminal charge. A defendant may plead guilty or not guilty. Depending on jurisdiction, additional pleas may be available, including '' nolo contendere'' (no contest), no case to answer (in the United Kingdom), or an Alford plea (in the United States). Under common law systems, a defendant who pleads guilty will be convicted if the court accepts the plea. The court will then determine and impose a sentence. Plea bargaining involves discussions between the prosecutor and defendants to reach an agreement for a guilty plea in exchange for a more lenient punishment. In civil law jurisdictions, a confession by the defendant is treated like any other piece of evidence. A full confession does not prevent a full trial or relieve the prosecutor from presenting a case to the court. Types of plea The most common types of plea are "guilty" and "not guilty". In some legal systems pleading guilty can result in a more lenient punishment ...
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Western Circuit
Circuit courts are court systems in several common law jurisdictions. It may refer to: * Courts that literally sit 'on circuit', i.e., judges move around a region or country to different towns or cities where they will hear cases; * Courts that sit within a judicial circuit, i.e., an administrative division of a country's judiciary; or * A higher-level trial court, e.g., for felony or indictment offences. History Origin in England The term "circuit court" is derived from the English custom of itinerant courts whose judges periodically travelled on pre-set paths - or circuits - to hear cases from different areas. Establishment The first formal circuits were defined in 1293, when a statute was enacted which established four assize circuits. It was long assumed that these circuits originated with the eyre in common pleas during the reign of Henry II, but during the late 1950s, legal historians such as Ralph Pugh recognized that the eyre's "connection with later circuit j ...
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Oxford Circuit
The assizes (), or courts of assize, 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 (local county courts held four times per year), while the more minor offences were dealt with summarily by justices of the peace in petty sessions (also known as magistrates' courts). The word ''assize'' refers to the sittings or sessions (Old French ''assises'') of the judges, known as "justices of assize", who were judges who travelled across the seven circuits of England and Wales on commissions of "oyer and terminer", setting up court and summoning juries at t ...
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Nisi Prius
''Nisi prius'' () (Latin: "unless before") 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.Curzon (2002) Used in that way, the term has had no currency since the abolition of assizes in 1971. Courts Act 1971 Trial at ''nisi prius'' Before the reforms of the Judicature Act 1873, civil cases at common law were begun in one of the three courts that sat in Westminster Hall: the Court of Common Pleas, Court of Exchequer and King's Bench. Because of their historical origins, these courts were to some extent in competition, especially as their respective judges and officers lived on the fees deriving from them. Given that travel to London was an onerous burden during the medieval period, however, the Statute of Westminster II provided in 1285 for trial of fact in civil cases a ...
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Temple University
Temple University (Temple or TU) is a public university, public Commonwealth System of Higher Education, state-related research university in Philadelphia, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. It was founded in 1884 by the Baptist minister Russell Conwell and his congregation at the Grace Baptist Church of Philadelphia, then called Baptist Temple. Today, Temple is the List of colleges and universities in Pennsylvania, second-largest university in Pennsylvania by enrollment and awarded 9,128 degrees in the 2023–24 academic year. It has a worldwide alumni base of 378,012, with 352,175 alumni residing in the United States. The university consists of 17 schools and colleges, including five professional schools, offering over 640+ academic programs and over 160 undergraduate majors. about 30,005 undergraduate, graduate and professional students were enrolled at the university. It is Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education, classified among "R1: Doctoral U ...
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Historical Legal Occupations
History is the systematic study of the past, focusing primarily on the human past. As an academic discipline, it analyses and interprets evidence to construct narratives about what happened and explain why it happened. Some theorists categorize history as a social science, while others see it as part of the humanities or consider it a hybrid discipline. Similar debates surround the purpose of history—for example, whether its main aim is theoretical, to uncover the truth, or practical, to learn lessons from the past. In a more general sense, the term ''history'' refers not to an academic field but to the past itself, times in the past, or to individual texts about the past. Historical research relies on primary and secondary sources to reconstruct past events and validate interpretations. Source criticism is used to evaluate these sources, assessing their authenticity, content, and reliability. Historians strive to integrate the perspectives of several sources to develop ...
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