not guilty

not guilty (plural not guilties)

1. (law) A formal plea by a defendant of not being culpable for the crime with which the defendant is charged.

   If you do not plead, a plea of not guilty will be entered for you.

2. (law) A verdict or formal finding by the legal system that a defendant is not culpable for the crime with which the defendant was charged.
   • 2003, D.B.C. Pierre, Vernon God Little‎, →ISBN, page 238:

     My heart beats through five not guilties. Six, seven, nine, eleven. Seventeen not guilties. The prosecutor's lips curl.

3. A member of a jury or tribunal supporting acquittal, or a vote cast in support of acquittal.
   • 2006, John Lutz, Chill of Night‎, →ISBN, page 213:

     Two not guilties. Seven for conviction. "I'm a 'not guilty,'" she said.

4. A person who has been acquitted of a crime.
   • 1997, David Brinkley, “June 5, 1983”, in Everyone Is Entitled to My Opinion‎, →ISBN, page 32:

     The not guilties walked out and went to work if they had jobs; the guilties were hauled away to spend maybe thirty days on the county farm growing cabbage.

• (plea of non-culpability): innocent
• (verdict of non-culpability): acquittal

• guilty

• (plea of non-culpability): guilty, no contest, nolo contendere, not proven
• (verdict of non-culpability): guilty

not guilty

1. (law) Of a person, legally innocent of a crime which they have been accused of in a court of law.

   He was found not guilty because there was a reasonable doubt.

2. (nonstandard) Innocent.

   The jury said he was not guilty. I knew he wouldn't have done something like that.