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Guilt (law)

Guilt (law)

State of being responsible for a crime per the state's rules

Photo: John Singer Sargent · Commons · Public domain · Cropped & Resized

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In criminal law, guilt is the state of being responsible for the commission of an offense. Legal guilt is entirely externally defined by the state, or more generally a "court of law". Being factually guilty of a criminal offense means that one has committed a violation of criminal law or performed all the elements of the offense set out by a criminal statute. The determination that one has committed that violation is made by an external body after the determination of the facts by a finder of fact or "factfinder" and is, therefore, as definitive as the record-keeping of the body. For instance, in the case of a bench trial, a judge acts as both the court of law and the factfinder, whereas in a jury trial, the jury is the trier of fact and the judge acts only as the trier of law.

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Image: John Singer Sargent, Public domain · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0