Peremptory Pleas
These are pleas which claim that a case cannot proceed for some reason. They are so called because, rather than being an answer to the question of guilt or innocence, they are a claim that the matter of guilt or innocence should not be considered.
They are :
- autrefois convict - where the defendant has already been convicted of the charge (and thus cannot be tried again)
- autrefois acquit - where he has previously acquitted of the same charge (and hence cannot be tried again, under the doctrine of double jeopardy),
- plea of pardon - where he has been pardoned for the offence.
- special liability to repair a road or bridge - in English law, where a defendant local authority alleges that a private landowner was responsible for repairing a road or bridge
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Famous quotes containing the word pleas:
“The heart may think it knows better: the senses know that absence blots people out. We really have no absent friends. The friend becomes a traitor by breaking, however unwillingly or sadly, out of our own zone: a hard judgment is passed on him, for all the pleas of the heart.”
—Elizabeth Bowen (1899–1973)