In flagrante delicto (Latin for "in blazing offence"), sometimes simply in flagrante ("in blazing"), is a legal term used to indicate that a criminal has been caught in the act of committing an offence (compare corpus delicti ). The colloquial "caught red-handed" and "caught rapid" are English equivalents. [1] [2]
Aside from the legal meaning, the Latin term is often used colloquially as euphemism for someone being caught in the midst of sexual activity. [3] [4]
The phrase combines the present active participle flagrāns (flaming or blazing) with the noun dēlictum (offence, misdeed, or crime). In this term the Latin preposition in, not indicating motion, takes the ablative. The closest literal translation would be "in blazing offence", where "blazing" is a metaphor for vigorous, highly visible action.
In many Latin American countries, being caught in flagrante (Spanish: en flagrancia, Portuguese: em flagrante) is a common legal requirement for both detention [5] and search and seizure. [6] [7] Naturally, being caught in flagrante makes convictions easier to obtain; in some jurisdictions where the police are not adept at investigation and the use of forensic science is not widespread, it may be difficult to get a conviction any other way. [8] On occasion, governments with such constitutional requirements have been accused of stretching the definition of in flagrante in order to carry out illegal arrests. [5] [9] In Brazil, a member of the National Congress cannot be arrested unless caught in flagrante delicto of a non-bailable crime, and whether or not a member's detention should continue is decided by their parliamentary peers. [10]
In Japan, the phrase's translation, Genkōhan (現行犯), is used to refer to citizen's arrest, and is listed under Section 213 of the Code of Criminal Procedure as such.
In a legal dispute, one party has the burden of proof to show that they are correct, while the other party has no such burden and is presumed to be correct. The burden of proof requires a party to produce evidence to establish the truth of facts needed to satisfy all the required legal elements of the dispute.
An arrest is the act of apprehending and taking a person into custody, usually because the person has been suspected of or observed committing a crime. After being taken into custody, the person can be questioned further and/or charged. An arrest is a procedure in a criminal justice system, sometimes it is also done after a court warrant for the arrest.
Gringo (masculine) or gringa (feminine) is a term in Spanish and Portuguese for a foreigner, usually an English-speaking Anglo-American. There are differences in meaning depending on region and country. In Latin America, it is generally used to refer to non-Latin Americans. The term is often considered a pejorative, but is not always used to insult, and in the United States its usage and offensiveness is disputed.
A citizen's arrest is an arrest made by a private citizen – a person who is not acting as a sworn law-enforcement official. In common law jurisdictions, the practice dates back to medieval England and the English common law, in which sheriffs encouraged ordinary citizens to help apprehend law breakers.
Extrajudicial punishment is a punishment for an alleged crime or offense which is carried out without legal process or supervision by a court or tribunal through a legal proceeding.
Parliamentary immunity, also known as legislative immunity, is a system in which political leadership position holders such as president, vice president, minister, governor, lieutenant governor, speaker, deputy speaker, member of parliament, member of legislative assembly, member of legislative council, senator, member of congress, corporator, councilor etc. are granted full immunity from legal prosecution, both civil prosecution and criminal prosecution, in the course of the execution of their official duties.
Lèse-majesté or lese-majesty is an offence or defamation against the dignity of a ruling head of state or of the state itself. The English name for this crime is a modernised borrowing from the medieval French, where the phrase meant "a crime against the Crown". In classical Latin, laesa māiestās meant "hurt or violated majesty".
Tu quoque is a discussion technique that intends to discredit the opponent's argument by attacking the opponent's own personal behavior and actions as being inconsistent with their argument, so that the opponent is hypocritical. This specious reasoning is a special type of ad hominem attack. The Oxford English Dictionary cites John Cooke's 1614 stage play The Cittie Gallant as the earliest known use of the term in the English language.
Capital murder refers to a category of murder in some parts of the US for which the perpetrator is eligible for the death penalty. In its original sense, capital murder was a statutory offence of aggravated murder in Great Britain, Northern Ireland, and the Republic of Ireland, which was later adopted as a legal provision to define certain forms of aggravated murder in the United States. Some jurisdictions that provide for death as a possible punishment for murder, such as California, do not have a specific statute creating or defining a crime known as capital murder; instead, death is one of the possible sentences for certain kinds of murder. In these cases, "capital murder" is not a phrase used in the legal system but may still be used by others such as the media.
The Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 (PACE) is an Act of Parliament which instituted a legislative framework for the powers of police officers in England and Wales to combat crime, and provided codes of practice for the exercise of those powers. Part VI of PACE required the Home Secretary to issue Codes of Practice governing police powers. The aim of PACE is to establish a balance between the powers of the police in England and Wales and the rights and freedoms of the public. Equivalent provision is made for Northern Ireland by the Police and Criminal Evidence Order 1989 (SI 1989/1341). The equivalent in Scots Law is the Criminal Procedure (Scotland) Act 1995.
The term "smoking gun" is a reference to an object or fact that serves as conclusive evidence of a crime or similar act, just short of being caught in flagrante delicto. "Smoking gun" refers to the strongest kind of circumstantial evidence, as opposed to direct evidence. Direct evidence would be eyewitness testimony of someone who saw an actus reus, while connected events are considered circumstantial.
R v Waterfield [1963] 3 All E.R. 659 is an English Court of Appeal decision, a court of binding precedent, outlining the modern limits of the law that authorises a police officer to stop a person.
Resisting arrest, or simply resisting, is an illegal act of a suspected criminal either fleeing, threatening, assaulting, or providing a fake ID to a police officer during arrest. In most cases, the person responsible for resisting arrest is criminally charged or taken to court.
Sippenhaft or Sippenhaftung is a German term for the idea that a family or clan shares the responsibility for a crime or act committed by one of its members, justifying collective punishment. As a legal principle, it was derived from Germanic law in the Middle Ages, usually in the form of fines and compensations. It was adopted by Nazi Germany to justify the punishment of kin for the offence of a family member. Punishment often involved imprisonment and execution, and was applied to relatives of the conspirators of the failed 1944 bomb plot to assassinate Hitler.
In the common law legal system, an expungement or expunction proceeding, is a type of lawsuit in which an individual who has been arrested for or convicted of a crime seeks that the records of that earlier process be sealed or destroyed, making the records nonexistent or unavailable to the general public. If successful, the records are said to be "expunged". Black's Law Dictionary defines "expungement of record" as the "Process by which record of criminal conviction is destroyed or sealed from the state or Federal repository." While expungement deals with an underlying criminal record, it is a civil action in which the subject is the petitioner or plaintiff asking a court to declare that the records be expunged.
The law of Panama is based on civil law with influences from Spanish legal tradition and Roman laws. For the first several years of its existence Panamanian law depended upon the legal code inherited from Colombia. The first Panamanian codes, promulgated in 1917, were patterned upon those of Colombia and other Latin American states that had earlier broken away from the Spanish Empire. Therefore, Panama's legal heritage incorporated elements from Spain and its colonies.
Infangthief and outfangthief were privileges granted to feudal lords under Anglo-Saxon law by the kings of England. They permitted their bearers to execute summary justice on thieves within the borders of their own manors or fiefs.
Juan Requesens, a deputy of the Venezuelan National Assembly, was arrested as a suspect in the Caracas drone attack, an alleged assassination plot on the Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. The circumstances of his arrest and detention are controversial, and irregularities surround the legal proceedings. Requesens was imprisoned in El Helicoide from his arrest on 7 August 2018, with allegations of torture to coerce a confession, and delays impeding the legal process and hearings until his release on 28 August 2020.
This glossary contains Brazilian terms related to criminal or corruption investigations, and supporting concepts from politics, the law, government, criminology, and law enforcement.
This page is a glossary of law.
if somebody is found or caught in flagrante, they are discovered doing something that they should not be doing, especially having sex
2 : in the midst of sexual activity
The dictionary definition of in flagrante delicto at Wiktionary