Legal Definitions - fresh

In a legal context, fresh describes something that is very recent, immediate, or has occurred without any significant delay or intervening period. It implies that an action, event, or piece of information retains its original impact, relevance, or status because it has not been allowed to become old, stale, or diluted by time.

• Fresh Pursuit

  Imagine a scenario involving law enforcement. The concept of fresh pursuit allows police officers to cross jurisdictional boundaries (like from one city to another) to apprehend a suspect if they are continuously and immediately chasing that person after a crime has been committed. The pursuit must be unbroken and without significant delay from the moment the crime is observed or reported.

  This illustrates "fresh" because the pursuit is not interrupted; it is recent and ongoing from the time of the offense, maintaining the urgency and immediacy required for the exception to jurisdictional rules.

• Fresh Complaint

  In cases involving certain crimes, such as sexual assault, a victim's immediate report of the incident to another person is sometimes referred to as a fresh complaint. This doesn't mean the complaint itself is evidence of the crime, but rather that the fact of a prompt report can be used to corroborate the victim's testimony that the event occurred.

  Here, "fresh" emphasizes that the complaint was made very soon after the alleged incident, before a substantial amount of time passed, which can be seen as consistent with the trauma and urgency of the situation.

• Fresh Evidence

  Consider a situation where a court case has concluded, but new information comes to light. For this new information to be considered fresh evidence and potentially warrant a new trial or reconsideration, it must be genuinely new, not previously available or discoverable with reasonable diligence during the original proceedings, and often presented to the court without undue delay after its discovery.

  This demonstrates "fresh" because the evidence is recent in its discovery and presentation, meaning it hasn't been held back or become stale, and it introduces newness to the legal proceedings.