Terms Used In New York Laws > Criminal Procedure > Part 3 > Title P - Procedures For Securing Attendance At Criminal Actions and Proceedings of Defendants and Witnesses Under Control of Court--recognizance, Bail and Commitment

• Acquittal:
  1. Judgement that a criminal defendant has not been proved guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.
  2. A verdict of "not guilty."
   
• Adjourn: A motion to adjourn a legislative chamber or a committee, if passed, ends that day's session.
• Advice and consent: Under the Constitution, presidential nominations for executive and judicial posts take effect only when confirmed by the Senate, and international treaties become effective only when the Senate approves them by a two-thirds vote.
• Affidavit: A written statement of facts confirmed by the oath of the party making it, before a notary or officer having authority to administer oaths.
• Allegation: something that someone says happened.
• Amendment: A proposal to alter the text of a pending bill or other measure by striking out some of it, by inserting new language, or both. Before an amendment becomes part of the measure, thelegislature must agree to it.
• Animal: means cattle, swine, sheep, goats, horses and other large domesticated mammals. See N.Y. Agriculture and Markets Law 96-G
• Appeal: A request made after a trial, asking another court (usually the court of appeals) to decide whether the trial was conducted properly. To make such a request is "to appeal" or "to take an appeal." One who appeals is called the appellant.
• Appearance bond: means a bail bond in which the only obligor is the principal. See N.Y. Criminal Procedure Law 500.10
• Appellate: About appeals; an appellate court has the power to review the judgement of another lower court or tribunal.
• Appraisal: A determination of property value.
• Appropriation: The provision of funds, through an annual appropriations act or a permanent law, for federal agencies to make payments out of the Treasury for specified purposes. The formal federal spending process consists of two sequential steps: authorization
• Arraignment: A proceeding in which an individual who is accused of committing a crime is brought into court, told of the charges, and asked to plead guilty or not guilty.
• Arrest: Taking physical custody of a person by lawful authority.
• Bail: Security given for the release of a criminal defendant or witness from legal custody (usually in the form of money) to secure his/her appearance on the day and time appointed.
• Bail: means cash bail, a bail bond or money paid with a credit card. See N.Y. Criminal Procedure Law 500.10
• Bail bond: means a written undertaking, executed by one or more obligors, that the principal designated in such instrument will, while at liberty as a result of an order fixing bail and of the posting of the bail bond in satisfaction thereof, appear in a designated criminal action or proceeding when his attendance is required and otherwise render himself amenable to the orders and processes of the court, and that in the event that he fails to do so the obligor or obligors will pay to the people of the state of New York a specified sum of money, in the amount designated in the order fixing bail. See N.Y. Criminal Procedure Law 500.10
• Cash bail: means a sum of money, in the amount designated in an order fixing bail, posted by a principal or by another person on his behalf with a court or other authorized public servant or agency, upon the condition that such money will become forfeit to the people of the state of New York if the principal does not comply with the directions of a court requiring his attendance at the criminal action or proceeding involved or does not otherwise render himself amenable to the orders and processes of the court. See N.Y. Criminal Procedure Law 500.10
• Commissioner: means the commissioner of agriculture and markets. See N.Y. Agriculture and Markets Law 96-G
• Complaint: A written statement by the plaintiff stating the wrongs allegedly committed by the defendant.
• Contract: A legal written agreement that becomes binding when signed.
• Conviction: A judgement of guilt against a criminal defendant.
• Corporation: A legal entity owned by the holders of shares of stock that have been issued, and that can own, receive, and transfer property, and carry on business in its own name.
• Counterclaim: A claim that a defendant makes against a plaintiff.
• Court: includes , where appropriate, a judge authorized to act as described in a particular statute, though not as a court. See N.Y. Criminal Procedure Law 500.10
• Custom slaughtered meat: means meat from animals which have been slaughtered by a custom slaughterer for the owner exclusively for use, in the household of such owner, by him and members of his household and his non-paying guests and employees. See N.Y. Agriculture and Markets Law 96-G
• Custom slaughterer: means a person, firm, corporation or association who or which operates a place or establishment where animals are delivered by the owner thereof for slaughter exclusively for use, in the household of such owner, by him and members of his household and his non-paying guests and employees, provided, that such custom slaughterer does not engage in the business of buying or selling any carcasses, parts of carcasses, meat or meat products of any animal. See N.Y. Agriculture and Markets Law 96-G
• Damages: Money paid by defendants to successful plaintiffs in civil cases to compensate the plaintiffs for their injuries.
• Defendant: In a civil suit, the person complained against; in a criminal case, the person accused of the crime.
• Discovery: Lawyers' examination, before trial, of facts and documents in possession of the opponents to help the lawyers prepare for trial.
• Dismissal: The dropping of a case by the judge without further consideration or hearing. ^Source:
• Docket: A log containing brief entries of court proceedings.
• 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.
• Farm dressed meat: means meat from animals slaughtered by a bona fide farmer who, as an incident of such farm operation, slaughters his own domestic animals on his own premises exclusively for use, in his household, by him and members of his household and his non-paying guests and employees. See N.Y. Agriculture and Markets Law 96-G
• Federal inspection: means the meat inspection maintained by the United States department of agriculture. See N.Y. Agriculture and Markets Law 96-G
• Fiscal year: The fiscal year is the accounting period for the government. For the federal government, this begins on October 1 and ends on September 30. The fiscal year is designated by the calendar year in which it ends; for example, fiscal year 2006 begins on October 1, 2005 and ends on September 30, 2006.
• Grand jury: agreement providing that a lender will delay exercising its rights (in the case of a mortgage,
• Indemnification: In general, a collateral contract or assurance under which one person agrees to secure another person against either anticipated financial losses or potential adverse legal consequences. ^{Source: FDIC}
• Indictment: The formal charge issued by a grand jury stating that there is enough evidence that the defendant committed the crime to justify having a trial; it is used primarily for felonies.
• Inspection legend: means a mark or a statement authorized by the provisions of the federal law, on a carcass, meat, meat by-product, or meat food product indicating the product has been inspected and passed. See N.Y. Agriculture and Markets Law 96-G
• Insurance company bail bond: means a surety bond, executed in the form prescribed by the superintendent of financial services, in which the surety-obligor is a corporation licensed by the superintendent of financial services to engage in the business of executing bail bonds. See N.Y. Criminal Procedure Law 500.10
• Jurisdiction: (1) The legal authority of a court to hear and decide a case. Concurrent jurisdiction exists when two courts have simultaneous responsibility for the same case. (2) The geographic area over which the court has authority to decide cases.
• Lease: A contract transferring the use of property or occupancy of land, space, structures, or equipment in consideration of a payment (e.g., rent). ^{Source: OCC}
• Liabilities: The aggregate of all debts and other legal obligations of a particular person or legal entity.
• Lien: A claim against real or personal property in satisfaction of a debt.
• Meat: means the edible part of the muscle of cattle, swine, sheep, goats, horses and other large domesticated animals which is skeletal or which is found in the tongue, in the diaphragm, in the heart or in the esophagus, with or without the accompanying or overlying fat, and the portions of bone, skin, nerve and blood vessels which normally accompany the muscle tissue and which are not separated from it in the process of dressing. See N.Y. Agriculture and Markets Law 96-G
• Meat by-product: means any edible part other than meat which has been derived from cattle, swine, sheep, goats, horses and other large domesticated animals. See N.Y. Agriculture and Markets Law 96-G
• Meat food product: means any product capable of use as human food which is made wholly or in part from any meat or other portion of the carcass of any animal, excepting products which contain meat or other portions of such carcasses only in a relatively small proportion or historically have not been considered by consumers as products of the meat food industry, and which are exempted from definition as a meat food product by the commissioner under such conditions as he may prescribe to assure that the meat or other portions of such carcasses contained in such product are not adulterated and that such products are not represented as meat food products. See N.Y. Agriculture and Markets Law 96-G
• Meat label: means a display of written, printed, or graphic matter authorized by the provisions of the federal law on a container indicating the meat, meat by-products, or meat food products contained therein have been inspected and passed. See N.Y. Agriculture and Markets Law 96-G
• Minority leader: See Floor Leaders
• Oath: A promise to tell the truth.
• Obligor: means a person who executes a bail bond on behalf of a principal and thereby assumes the undertaking described therein. See N.Y. Criminal Procedure Law 500.10
• Order of recognizance or bail: means a securing order releasing a principal on the principal's own recognizance or under non-monetary conditions or, where authorized, fixing bail. See N.Y. Criminal Procedure Law 500.10
• Partially secured bail bond: means a bail bond secured only by a deposit of a sum of money not exceeding ten percent of the total amount of the undertaking. See N.Y. Criminal Procedure Law 500.10
• Partnership: A voluntary contract between two or more persons to pool some or all of their assets into a business, with the agreement that there will be a proportional sharing of profits and losses.
• Person: means any person, firm, corporation, or association. See N.Y. Agriculture and Markets Law 96-G
• Personal property: All property that is not real property.
• Plaintiff: The person who files the complaint in a civil lawsuit.
• Plea: In a criminal case, the defendant's statement pleading "guilty" or "not guilty" in answer to the charges, a declaration made in open court.
• Plea agreement: An arrangement between the prosecutor, the defense attorney, and the defendant in which the defendant agrees to plead guilty in exchange for special considerations. ^Source:
• Post bail: means to deposit bail in the amount and form fixed by the court, with the court or with some other authorized public servant or agency. See N.Y. Criminal Procedure Law 500.10
• Precedent: A court decision in an earlier case with facts and law similar to a dispute currently before a court. Precedent will ordinarily govern the decision of a later similar case, unless a party can show that it was wrongly decided or that it differed in some significant way.
• Principal: means a defendant in a criminal action or proceeding, or a person adjudged a material witness therein, or any other person so involved therein that the principal may by law be compelled to appear before a court for the purpose of having such court exercise control over the principal's person to secure the principal's future attendance at the action or proceeding when required, and who in fact either is before the court for such purpose or has been before it and been subjected to such control. See N.Y. Criminal Procedure Law 500.10
• Probation: A sentencing alternative to imprisonment in which the court releases convicted defendants under supervision as long as certain conditions are observed.
• Probation officers: Screen applicants for pretrial release and monitor convicted offenders released under court supervision.
• Real property: Land, and all immovable fixtures erected on, growing on, or affixed to the land.
• Remand: When an appellate court sends a case back to a lower court for further proceedings.
• Secured bail bond: means a bail bond secured by either:
  
  (a) Personal property which is not exempt from execution and which, over and above all liabilities and encumbrances, has a value equal to or greater than the total amount of the undertaking; or
  
  (b) Real property having a value of at least twice the total amount of the undertaking. See N.Y. Criminal Procedure Law 500.10
• Securing order: means an order of a court committing a principal to the custody of the sheriff or fixing bail, where authorized, or releasing the principal on the principal's own recognizance or releasing the principal under non-monetary conditions, or, as otherwise authorized under this title, ordering non-monetary conditions in conjunction with fixing bail. See N.Y. Criminal Procedure Law 500.10
• Settlement: Parties to a lawsuit resolve their difference without having a trial. Settlements often involve the payment of compensation by one party in satisfaction of the other party's claims.
• Statute: A law passed by a legislature.
• Subpoena: A command to a witness to appear and give testimony.
• Surety: means an obligor who is not a principal. See N.Y. Criminal Procedure Law 500.10
• Surety bond: means a bail bond in which the obligor or obligors consist of one or more sureties or of one or more sureties and the principal. See N.Y. Criminal Procedure Law 500.10
• Testify: Answer questions in court.
• Testimony: Evidence presented orally by witnesses during trials or before grand juries.
• Transcript: A written, word-for-word record of what was said, either in a proceeding such as a trial or during some other conversation, as in a transcript of a hearing or oral deposition.
• Trial: A hearing that takes place when the defendant pleads "not guilty" and witnesses are required to come to court to give evidence.
• Unsecured bail bond: means a bail bond, other than an insurance company bail bond, not secured by any deposit of or lien upon property. See N.Y. Criminal Procedure Law 500.10
• Verdict: The decision of a petit jury or a judge.
• Youth: means a person charged with a crime alleged to have been committed when he was at least sixteen years old and less than nineteen years old or a person charged with being a juvenile offender as defined in subdivision forty-two of section 1. See N.Y. Criminal Procedure Law 720.10
• Youthful offender finding: means a finding, substituted for the conviction of an eligible youth, pursuant to a determination that the eligible youth is a youthful offender. See N.Y. Criminal Procedure Law 720.10