Dictionary

adjudication: A legal process by which an arbiter or judge reviews evidence and argumentation (including legal reasoning set forth by opposing parties or litigants) to come to a decision that determines rights and obligations between the parties involved.

adversarial system: The system of law that relies on the skill of each advocate representing his or her party’s positions and involves a neutral person, usually the judge, trying to determine the truth of the case.

appeal: The legal process for requesting a formal change to an official decision.

attorney at law: A practitioner in a court of law who is legally qualified to prosecute and defend actions in such court on the retainer of clients.

civil law: A legal system that starts with abstract rules, which judges must then apply to the various cases before them.

code enforcement: The act of enforcing a set of rules, principles or laws and ensuring observance of a system of norms or customs.

common law: Law is created and/or refined by judges; also a decision in the case currently pending that depends on decisions in previous cases and affects the law to be applied in future cases.

corrections: Society’s handling of persons after their conviction of a criminal offense.

court: A public forum used by a power base to adjudicate disputes and dispense civil, labor, administrative and criminal justice under its laws.

court order: A judge's official proclamation that defines the legal relationships between the parties to a hearing, a trial, an appeal or other court proceedings.

criminal justice: The system of practices and organizations used by national and local governments. Criminal justice seeks to maintain social control, deter and control crime and punish law violations with criminal penalties.

criminal law: Legal cases wherein actions are dangerous or harmful to society as a whole that prosecution is pursued not by an individual but rather by the state.

criminology: The socio-scientific study of crime as an individual and social phenomenon.