Rarest of Rare Doctrine
Definition
The Indian Supreme Court's standard, set out in Bachan Singh v. State of Punjab (1980), that death may be imposed only when the alternative of life imprisonment is unquestionably foreclosed after weighing aggravating and mitigating circumstances.
Related terms
- Abolitionist State
- A country that has removed capital punishment from its law for all crimes, or that retains it in law but has not...
- Death Penalty
- A sentence of execution imposed by a court for an offence the law classifies as capital, carried out by an agent of...
- Deterrence Hypothesis
- The claim that the threat or use of execution reduces the rate of capital crime below what it would be under a...
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- Wrongful Conviction
- A conviction that is later determined to be factually incorrect, usually through post-conviction DNA testing or other newly available evidence. Bite mark...