Art. 872 Basis for valid sentence

Before a judge can hand down a sentence, three things have to be in place and legally solid. First, there needs to be an actual law that makes the charged act a crime. Without a real statute behind it, no sentence can stand.

Second, the person must have been formally charged in a proper indictment. This is the official document that lays out what crime they're accused of committing. If the charging document is flawed or invalid, the sentence that follows can't be considered valid either.

Third, there has to be a valid outcome that determines guilt. This could be a jury's verdict, a judge's judgment, or the person's own guilty plea. Each of these must be proper and legally sound.

If any one of these three pieces is missing or defective, the sentence itself is not valid. This rule protects people from being punished based on shaky legal ground, whether that's a bad law, a faulty charge, or a flawed guilty finding.