A posthumous trial or post-mortem trial is a
trial
In law, a trial is a coming together of parties to a dispute, to present information (in the form of evidence) in a tribunal, a formal setting with the authority to adjudicate claims or disputes. One form of tribunal is a court. The tribun ...
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 jurisd ...
'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 Januar ...
of
Pope Formosus
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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 Dan ...
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Pope Boniface VIII
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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, 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 th ...
, 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[MacFarquhar, Roderick. "Red Terror." Mao's Last Revolution. Cambridge: Harvard University. 2006. p. 120.]
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Henry Plummer, resulting in a mistrial.
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Sergei Magnitsky
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
References
Criminal justice
Legal aspects of death
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