In criminal trials in certain U. S. jurisdictions, it is a plea where the defendant neither admits nor disputes a charge, serving as an alternative to a pleading of guilty or not guilty.

A well known civil rights attorney, Francis Heisler, had volunteered to defend the arrested persons, advising them to plead " no lo contendre ", as an alternative to pleading either guilty or not-guilty.

Parties who face uncertainties regarding the facts and circumstances attendant to their side in a dispute may sometimes invoke alternative pleading.

This term was designed to address a very serious problem that libertarians in Washington had come to see themselves as a pleading pressure group hoping to find " market-based " solutions to public policy problems but within public policy, and thus do they support school vouchers, limited wars, managed trade, forced savings as an alternative to social security, and the like.

" If a party makes alternative statements, the pleading is sufficient if any one of them is sufficient.

Arbitration, in the context of United States law, is a form of alternative dispute resolution — specifically, a legal alternative to litigation whereby the parties to a dispute agree to submit their respective positions ( through agreement or hearing ) to a neutral third party ( the arbitrator ( s ) or arbiter ( s )) for resolution.

These instructions can be given some legal effect if bequests are made contingent on the heirs carrying them out, with alternative gifts if they are not followed.

Slaw, the Canadian legal co-operative, offered this advice to lawyers just starting out in practice, especially those who are trying to pay off student loans, " The GnuCash software ... should present a great alternative for lawyers looking for a solid accounting system at low cost.

Homeschooling is a legal option for parents in many countries, allowing them to provide their children with a learning environment as an alternative to public or private schools outside the home.

Key escrow is proactive, anticipating the need for access to keys ; a retroactive alternative is key disclosure law, where users are required to surrender keys upon demand by law enforcement, or else face legal penalties.

It is argued that this is motivated by " politicians ' desires to borrow money surreptitiously ", due to legal restrictions on and political resistance to alternative sources of revenue, viz, raising taxes or issuing debt.

The second Sigal responsum called for a takkanah, or rabbinical edict, " that would serve as a halakhic ERA ," overruling all non-egalitarian provisions in law or, in the alternative, a new approach to halakhic interpretation independent of legal precedents.

In many cases, the tax consequences of using the trust are better than the alternative, and trusts are therefore frequently used for legal tax avoidance.

The unanimous decision held that the state's prohibitions on same-sex marriage were a violation of rights granted by the Vermont Constitution and ordered the Vermont legislature to either allow same-sex marriages or implement an alternative legal mechanism according similar rights.

On 6 November, Enderby was to see Kerr to give him a legal opinion regarding the Government's alternative plans in case supply ran out ( vouchers were to be issued instead of cheques, to be redeemed from banks after the crisis ended ), and decided to present Kerr with the rebuttal to Ellicott.

Regardless of the legal requirements for labelling, extensive education efforts by the Champagne region, and the use of alternative names by non-Champagne quality sparkling wine producers, some consumers and wine sellers continue to regard champagne as a generic term for white sparkling wines, regardless of origin.

While Hitler was in prison, Röhm helped to create the Frontbann as a legal alternative to the then-outlawed SA.

The only legal alternative to this was to apply for a special visa beforehand, which entailed interview at an American Embassy, confiscation of the passport during the lengthy application process, and then, if permission were granted, a permanent attachment being made to the applicant's passport.

At the same time Congress established the Federal Trade Commission ( FTC ), whose legal and business experts could force business to agree to " consent decrees ", which provided an alternative mechanism to police antitrust.

Some couples obtain a legal separation as an alternative to a divorce, based on moral or religious objections to divorce.

* Bertis Downs, manager and legal consul to alternative rock band R. E. M.

Ladislaus ' alternative, but much weaker claim, had been based in Byzantine legal traditions in which it is the right of an emperor's widow to choose his successor and Ilona had declared her support for him.

There are many reasons why births go unregistered, including social and cultural beliefs and attitudes ; alternative documents and naming ceremonies ; remote areas, poor infrastructure ; economic barriers ; lack of office staff, equipment and training ; legal and political restrictions ; fear of discrimination and persecution ; war, conflict and unrest or simply the fact that there is no system in place.

The Dáil Courts and alternative legal enforcement units were set up by republicans.

" The NCSF is committed to creating a political, legal and social environment in the US that advances equal rights for consenting adults who engage in alternative sexual and relationship expressions.

The first element, attacking the validity of Aberhart's ideas directly, had failed because much of the Alberta public, in abject poverty, was not interested in hearing economic and legal arguments against social credit, especially when the UFA had no alternative plan.

Dinosaur Jr. is an American alternative rock band formed in Amherst, Massachusetts in 1984, originally called simply Dinosaur until legal issues forced a change in name.

The justices ' alternative title of " magistrate " dates from the 16th century, although the word had been in use centuries earlier to describe some legal officials of Roman times.

Alternate history or alternative history is a genre of fiction consisting of stories that are set in worlds in which history has diverged from the actual history of the world.

Some of these languages, e. g., in worlds of fantasy fiction, alternative universes, Earth's future, or alternate history, are presented as distorted versions or dialects of modern English or other natural language, while others are independently designed conlangs.

The term grimoire commonly serves as an alternative name for a spell-book or tome of magical knowledge in such genres as fantasy fiction and role-playing games.

High fantasy is defined as fantasy fiction set in an alternative, entirely fictional (" secondary ") world, rather than the real, or " primary " world.

In particular, his stories — together with those of C. S. Lewis — were among the first to establish the convention of an alternative world or universe as the setting for speculative fiction.

Works of political fiction often " directly criticize an existing society or ... present an alternative, sometimes fantastic, reality.

Science fiction is largely based on writing rationally about alternative possible worlds or futures.

It involves a setting where steam power is widely used — whether in an alternative history such as Victorian era Britain or " Wild West "- era United States, or in a post-apocalyptic time — that incorporates elements of either science fiction or fantasy.

It was a hard science fiction alternative to the looser space opera of Classic Traveller.

* In literature, science fiction, fantasy ( with well-developed fictional worlds, rich in detail ), alternative history fiction gained unprecedented popularity.

Capek can be considered as one of the founders of classical, non-hardcore European science fiction which aims on possible future ( or alternative ) social and human evolution on Earth.

While the Mason novels were largely a form of pulp fiction of the sort that began Gardner's writing career, they are unusual in that the whodunnit mysteries usually involved two solutions: one in which the authorities believed ( whereby Mason's client was guilty ) and an alternative explanation ( whereby Mason's client was innocent ).

Other fan-made additions to a universe ( fan fiction, alternative universe, pastiche, parody ) are usually not considered canonical unless they get authorized.

The story shows an ageing, maybe dying, novelist grappling with alternative versions of his own past as he adapts them for his fiction.

New wave and feminist science fiction authors imagined cultures a variety of gender models or atypical sexual relationships, such as group marriages or homosexual single-gendered societies, are the norm, and depictions of sex acts and alternative sexualities became commonplace.

Burgoyne has made appearances as a character in historical and alternative history fiction.

( However, Ward Moore reversed this staple of alternate history fiction in his Bring the Jubilee ( 1953 ), where an alternative world where the Confederate States of America won the Battle of Gettysburg and the American Civil War is destroyed after a historian and time traveller from the defeated United States of that world travels back to the scene of the battle and inadvertently changes the result so that the North wins that battle.

Conversely, often in film noir and crime dramas, the alternative narrative is a fiction created by a central character, intentionally — as in The Usual Suspects — or unintentionally — as in Angel Heart.

Space rock is a subgenre of rock music ; the term originally referred to a group of early, mostly British, 1970s progressive and psychedelic rock bands such as Hawkwind and Pink Floyd, characterised by slow, lengthy instrumental passages dominated by electronic organs, synthesizers, experimental guitar work and science fiction or astronomical lyrical themes, though it was later repurposed to refer to a series of late 1980s British alternative rock bands that drew from earlier influences to create a more ambient but still melodic form of pop music.

Commercial products just for miniatures wargamers and awareness as a single community of people with similar interests date back to the 1950s with the efforts of Jack Scruby ; major developments in the field since then include the rise in the 1960s and 1970s of fantasy and science fiction wargames as an alternative to games based on historical conflicts, and the emergence of companies like Games Workshop, Battlefront, Foundry, Warlord Games, Privateer Press and many others.

2300 AD is a hard science fiction tabletop role-playing game created by Game Designers Workshop, originally offered as an alternative to the space opera portrayed by the company's leading science fiction role-playing game, Traveller.

* In written fiction, Vivian Vande Velde's book The Rumpelstiltskin Problem presents a handful of alternative versions of the tale in a humorous attempt to address perceived plot holes in the story.