When a criminal defendant refuses to enter a pleading during arraignment and, after rising, does not answer the judge for a plea of guilty or not guilty. Law Dictionary - Alternative Legal Definition practice, crim. law. When a prisoner upon his arraignment totally refuses to answer, insists upon mere frivolous pretenses, or refuses to put himself upon the country, after … [Read more...]

A claim barred under a statute of limitations or doctrine of laches. A claim which has not been pressed or asserted for so long a time that the owner or creditor is chargeable with laches, and that changes occurring meanwhile in the relative situation of the parties, or the intervention of new interests or equities, would render the enforcement of the claim or demand against … [Read more...]

This phrase is frequently used in relation to conveyances under the statute of uses. A covenant to stand seised to uses is a species of conveyance which derives its effect from the statute of uses, by which a man, seised of lands, covenants, in consideration of blood or marriage, that he will stand seised of the same, to the use of his child, wife, or kinsman, for life, in tail … [Read more...]

A stale demand is a claim which has been for a long time undemanded; as, for example, where there his been a delay of twelve years, unexplained. 3 Mason, 161. … [Read more...]

To give testimony in the place where witnesses testify in court. … [Read more...]