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requisitory

9.9

A speech by a prosecutor asking the jury to find someone guilty

noun
/ˌrɛkwɪˈzɪtəri/

: requisitorio

In her requisitory, the attorney outlined the evidence against the defendant clearly and convincingly.

Examples

Moszkowicz announced that his requisitory will take about 12 or 13 hours.

Blog text (6)
After lunch, the prosecutor restricted his requisitory to the first point of the indictment: Wilders' letter to the editor of one of the Dutch newspapers of 2007 in which Wilders quoted Orania Fallacia and Wilders' "Fitna."

Blog text (6)
The prosecutor delivered a compelling requisitory that emphasized the importance of a fair trial.
During the trial, the judge listened attentively to the lengthy requisitory presented by the state.

How Forceful

harangue

4 8.9

requisitory

9.9

argument

∞ 2.5

address

Formal

212 5.3

summing up

Formal

4 4.4

statement

Formal

∞ 1.3

Surface Forms

requisitory singular

requisitories plural

Morphology

requisitory = requisition (semi-transparent) = requisition + itory

The noun for a prosecutor's formal address is historically related to 'requisition' (a demand), but this is a specialized legal sense that is not obvious to most learners from the components alone.

Etymology

Requisitory comes from the same idea as request and requisition, which mean 'to ask' or 'to demand'. A helpful way to remember this is that a prosecutor's requisitory is a strong speech that 'demands' a guilty verdict or punishment.