defense
Definitions from Case Law · United States Supreme Court
Definitions from Case Law
From 517 U.S. 456 - United States v. Armstrong · 1996Most cited · 2,629 citing opinions
any claim that is a "sword," challenging the prosecution's conduct of the case, the term may encompass only the narrower class of "shield" claims, which refute the Government's arguments that the defendant committed the crime charged.
How often courts cite the cases defining “defense”
Court decisions citing the 2 opinions that defined “defense” — 2,755 in all, by decade. Counts are citations to the defining cases as a whole, not verified uses of the term. The dip in the most recent years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the latest years.
All 2 definitions, chronological · 1907–1996
- ORIGINAL
Whatever tends to diminish the plaintiff's cause of action or to defeat recovery in whole or in part amounts in law to a defense.
statutory construction