Legal Dictionary of Pakistan
Quick lookup for English, Urdu, and Latin legal terms used in Pakistani jurisprudence.
Arrest of judgment
the staying of a judgment after its entry; esp., a court's refusal to render or enforce a judgment because of a defect apparent from the record. ( at common law, courts have the power to arrest judgment for intrinsic causes appearing on the record, as when the verdict differs materially from the pleadings or when the case alleged in the pleadings is legally insufficient. Today, this type of defect must typically be objected to before trial or before judgment is entered, so that the motion in arrest of judgment has been largely superseded. "an arrest of judgment [under common law] was the technical term describing the act of a trial judge refusing to enter judgment on the verdict because of an error appearing on the face of the record that rendered the judgment invalid." united states u. Sisson, 399 u.s. 267, 280-81, 90 s.ct. 2117, 2125 (1970).
motion in arrest of judgment
1. A defendant's motion claiming that a substantial error appearing on the face of the record vitiates the whole proceeding and the judgment. 2. A postjudgment motion in a criminal case claiming that the indictment is insufficient to sustain a judgment or the verdict is somehow insufficient.