Elements of a crime - Specific factors that define a crime which the prosecution must prove beyond a reasonable doubt in order to obtain a conviction: (1) that a crime has actually occurred, (2) that the accused intended the crime to happen, and (3) a timely relationship between the first two factors.
Eminent Domain - The power of the government to take private property for public use through condemnation.
Enjoining - An order by the court telling a person to stop performing a specific act.
Entity - A person or legally recognized organization.
Entrapment - The act of inducing a person to commit a crime so that a criminal charge will be brought against him/her.
Entry - A statement of conclusion reached by the court and placed in the court record.
Equal Protection of the Law - The guarantee by the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution that all persons be treated equally by the law.
Equity - Justice administered according to fairness; the spirit or habit of fairness in dealing with other persons.
Escheat - The process by which a deceased person’s property goes to the state if no heir can be found.
Escrow - Money or a written instrument such as a deed that, by agreement between two parties, is held be a neutral third party (held in escrow) until all conditions of the agreement are met.
Esquire - In the United States the title commonly appended after the name of an attorney. In English law - a title of dignity next above gentlemen and below knight. Title also given to barristers at law and others. Abbreviated: Esq.
Estate - A person’s property.
Estoppel - An impediment that prevents a person from asserting or doing something contrary to his/her own previous assertion or act.
Estreat -
Ethics - Of or relating to moral action and conduct; professionally right; conforming to professional standards.
Evidence - Information presented in testimony or in documents that is used to persuade the fact finder (judge or jury) to decide the case for one side or the other.
Exceptions - Declarations by either side in a civil or criminal case reserving the right to appeal a judge’s ruling upon a motion. Also, in regulatory cases, objections by either side to points made by the other side or to rulings by the agency or one of its hearing officers.
Exclusionary Rule - The rule preventing illegally obtained evidence to be used in any trial.
Execute - To complete; to sign; to carry out according to its terms.
Exhibit - A document or other item introduced as evidence during a trial or hearing.
Exonerate - Removal of a charge, responsibility, or duty.
Ex parte - On behalf of only one party, without notice to any other party. For example, a request for a search warrant is an ex parte proceeding, since the person subject to the search is not notified of the proceeding and is not present at the hearing.
Expungement - The process by which the record of criminal conviction is destroyed or sealed.
Extradition - The surrender of an accused criminal by one state to the jurisdiction of another.