Blacks Law Dict. 1st ed

CONFESSION

CONDUCTOR

248

however, retain their sovereign powers for domestic purposes and some others. See FEDERAL GOVERNMENT. CONFEDERATION. A league or com pact for mutual support, particularly of princes, nations, or states. Such was the colonial government during the Revolution. CONFERENCE. A meeting of several persons for deliberation, for the interchange of opinion, or for the removal of differences or disputes. Thus, a meeting between a counsel and solicitor to advise on the cause of their client. In the practice of legislative bodies, when the two houses cannot agree upon a pending measure, each appoints a committee of "con ference, " and the committees meet and con sult together for the purpose of removing differences, harmonizing conflicting views, and arranging a compromise which will be accepted by both houses. In international law. A personal meet ing between the diplomatic agents of two or more powers, for the purpose of making statements and explanations that will obvi ate the delay and difficulty attending the more formal conduct of negotiations. In French law. A concordance or iden tity between two laws or two systems of laws. CONFESS. To admit the truth of a charge or accusation. Usually spoken of charges of tortious or criminal conduct. CONFESSING- ERROR. A plea to an assignment of error, admitting the same. CONFESSIO. Lat. A confession. Con fessio in judicio, a confession made in or be fore a court. Confessio facta in judicio omni pro batione major est. A confession made in court is of greater effect than any proof. Jenk. Cent. 102. CONFESSION. In criminal law. A voluntary statement made by a person charged with the commission of a crime or misdemeanor, communicated to another per son, wherein he acknowledges himself to be guilty of the offense charged, and discloses the circumstances of the act or the share and participation which he had in it. Also the act of a prisoner, when arraigned for a crime or misdemeanor, in acknowledg ing and avowing that he is guilty of the offense charged. Judicial confessions are those made before

Inst. 3, 25; Bract, fol. 62, c. 28; Story, Bailm. §§ 8, 368. CONDUCTOR. In the civil law. A hirer. CONDUCTOR OPERARUM. in the eivil law. A person who engages to perform a piece of work for another, at a stated price. CONDUCTUS. A thing hired. CONE AND KEY. In old English law. A woman at fourteen or fifteen years of age may take charge of her house and receive cone and key; that is, keep the accounts and keys. Cowell. Said by Lord Coke to be cover and keye, meaning that at that age a woman knew what in her house should be kept under lock and key. 2 Inst. 203. CONFARREATIO. In Roman law. A saerificiak rite resorted to by marrying per sons of high patrician or priestly degree, for the purpose of clothing the husband with the manus over his wife; the civil modes of ef fecting the same thing being coemptio, (form al,) and usus mulieris, (informal.) Brown. CONFECTIO. The making and comple tion of a written instrument. 5 Coke, 1. CONFEDERACY. In criminal law. The association or banding together of two or more persons for the purpose of commit ting an act or furthering an enterprise which is forbidden by law, or which, though law ful in itself, becomes unlawful when made the object of the confederacy. Conspiracy is a more technical term for this offense. The act of two or more who combine to gether to do any damage or injuiy to anoth er, or to do any unlawful act. Jacob. See 52 How. Pr. 353; 41 Wis. 284. In equity pleading. An improper com bination alleged to have been entered into between the defendants to a bill in equity. In international law. A league or agreement between two or more independent states whereby they unite for their mutual welfare and the furtherance of their common aims. The term may apply to a union so formed for a temporary or limited purpose, as in the case of an offensive and defensive alliance; but it is more commonly used to denote that species of political connection between two or more independent states by which a central government is created, in vested with certain powers of sovereignty, (mostly external,) and acting upon the sev eral component states as its units, which,

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