In law, an affirmative defense is a complete or partial defense to a civil or criminal claim based on facts other than those alleged by the plaintiff or prosecutor. An affirmative defense alleges facts that, if proven by the defendant, would defeat or reduce a claim even if the allegations alleged in the claim are all proven. In civil lawsuits, affirmative defenses include the statute of limitations, the statute of frauds, and waiver. In criminal prosecutions, examples affirmative defenses include self defense, insanity, and the statute of limitations.
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Famous quotes containing the words affirmative and/or defense:
“Some rough political choices lie ahead. Should affirmative action be retained? Should preference be given to people on the basis of income rather than race? Should the system be—and can it be—scrapped altogether?”
—David K. Shipler (b. 1942)
“Unlike Boswell, whose Journals record a long and unrewarded search for a self, Johnson possessed a formidable one. His life in London—he arrived twenty-five years earlier than Boswell—turned out to be a long defense of the values of Augustan humanism against the pressures of other possibilities. In contrast to Boswell, Johnson possesses an identity not because he has gone in search of one, but because of his allegiance to a set of assumptions that he regards as objectively true.”
—Jeffrey Hart (b. 1930)