culpa-

To free from blame or the imputation of a fault; to exculpate.

1. To clear from guilt.
2. To pronounce not guilty of criminal charges.

The prefix ex- means "out of" or "away from" and from the Latin noun culpa, meaning "blame"; so, exculpate means "to clear from guilt". A legal term used in the sense of "excuse" or "justification".

Freed from any question of guilt; "He was absolved from all blame."

1. The act of freeing from guilt or blame.
2. A defense of some offensive behavior or some failure to keep a promise, etc.

1. Clearing someone of guilt or blame.
2. Clearing or tending to clear someone from an alleged legal fault or guilt; excusing.
3. Applied to evidence which may justify or excuse an accused defendant's actions and which will tend to show the defendant is not guilty or has no criminal intent.
4. Etymology: from Middle Latin exculpatus, past particple of exculpare, from Latin ex culpa, from ex-, "from" + culpa, "blame".

Something exculpatory frees a person from accusations; in other words, exculpatory evidence helps to prove that an accused individual is not guilty.

1. A contract clause which releases one of the parties from liability for his/her wrongful acts.
2. A provision in a document which protects a party from liability arising, in the main, from negligence; such a clause is common in leases, contracts, and trusts.

A statement or other evidence that tends to justify, excuse, or clear a defendant from an alleged fault or guilt.

Clear of guilt; irreproachable; blameless: Timothy admitted that he was not totally inculpable regarding the mess in the kitchen and would clean it up after returning from school.

1. A state of innocence.
2. Blamelessness; faultlessness.

1. To charge with fault; to blame; to accuse.
2. To involve in a charge; to incriminate.

1. To incriminate.
2. Blame; censure; incrimination.
3. An accusation that someone is responsible for some lapse or misdeed.

1. To incriminate.
2. Causing blame to be imputed to.

1. My fault; a personal acknowledgment that something is one's fault or that he or she is guilty of doing something: "When the writer misspelled the word mottoes as mottos in his printed article, he wrote, 'mea culpa' to his readers the next day."
2. Etymology: Latin, literally, "I am to blame", a phrase from the prayer of confession in the Latin liturgy; mea, "my, mine" and culpa, "fault".

Not guilty.

A legal verdict exonerating a person who has been on trial.