exculpated

Technical legal arcana is technical and arcane and “Trump exculpated!” is journalistic dopamine.

A thousand times rather would I have confessed myself guilty of the crime ascribed to Justine, but I was absent when it was committed, and such a declaration would have been considered as the ravings of a madman and would not have exculpated her who suffered through me.

She is pointing to their flaws because she wants to be exculpated for having chosen to disbelieve all of them.

The regime defined itself in the tradition of communists who had resisted fascism, giving rise to a state doctrine of remembrance that effectively exculpated it from wartime atrocities.

“Defense counsel obtained appointment to represent Gay through fraud, counseled him to make damaging confessions to the prosecution … and failed to conduct a timely investigation into available testimony from eyewitnesses who would have exculpated Gay and peace officers who would have inculpated Gay’s co-defendant.”