Legal Term: EFFIGY

Definition: crim. law. The figure or representation of a person. 2. To make the effigy of a person with an intent to make him the object of ridicule, is a libel. (q. v.) Hawk. b. 1, c. 7 3, s. 2 14 East, 227, 2 Chit. Cr. Law, 866. 3. In France an execution by effigy or in effigy is adopted in the case of a criminal who has fled from justice. By the public exposure or exhibition of a picture or representation of him on a scaffold, on which his name and the decree condemning him are written, he is deemed to undergo the punishment to which he has been sentenced. Since the adoption of the Code Civil, the practice has been to affix the names, qualities or addition, and the residence of the condemned person, together with an extract from the sentence of condemnation, to a post set upright in the ground, instead of exhibiting a portrait of him on the scaffold. Repertoire de Villargues, Biret, Vo cab.

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