Meaning & use
flight risk in court
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Meaning
phrasefixed phraselegallaw
A person accused of a crime who is considered likely to run away before their trial, so a judge may keep them in jail or set strict bail conditions.
Grammar: Used after verbs like be, consider, or deem: The judge deemed him a flight risk in court.
Patterns
- be a flight risk in court
- consider someone a flight risk in court
- deem someone a flight risk in court
The prosecutor argued that the defendant was a flight risk in court because he had family overseas and no steady job.
Because she had missed two previous hearings, the judge ruled that she was a flight risk in court and denied bail.
Defense lawyers tried to show that their client was not a flight risk in court by offering to surrender his passport.
Common combinations
- deem someone a flight risk in court
- The magistrate deemed the suspect a flight risk in court after hearing about his attempts to buy a fake passport.
- consider someone a flight risk in court
- The judge considered her a flight risk in court and set bail at a very high amount.
- not a flight risk in court
- His lawyer argued that he was not a flight risk in court because he had lived in the same town for twenty years.
- found to be a flight risk in court
- After a brief hearing, he was found to be a flight risk in court and was ordered to remain in custody.
Synonyms and how they differ
- bail risk
- A broader term that can include danger to the community as well as the likelihood of fleeing; flight risk in court focuses only on running away.
- risk of absconding
- More formal and common in British English; it means the same as being a flight risk, but is not usually used as a noun phrase with 'in court'.
Commonly confused: flight risk in court or flight risk (general)?
flight risk in court vs flight risk (general)
Outside law, 'flight risk' can also mean a passenger who might cause trouble on a plane, or an employee likely to leave a company. The phrase 'in court' makes it specifically about a legal hearing.
Practice
The judge said the defendant was a flight risk in court because he ______.
Choose one answer.
A flight risk in court means the person is likely to run away before trial. Buying a one-way ticket to a country that does not send people back is strong evidence of that risk. The other options actually suggest the person is not a flight risk.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “flight risk in court”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.