He had no record of the slightest criminal wrongdoing.
Apart from this, the differences between private and criminal procedures were slight.
This time some 17% of assessed candidates face criminal charges, a slight increase on 2009.
But when the solicitor general prevails on grounds that he considers unjust (for example, when evidence supporting a criminal verdict is slight), he may "confess error" and recommend that the Supreme Court overturn the decision.
But the hands-across-the-ocean gesture doesn't quite take, and as the slight plot unfolds (an international criminal organization is after them for the manuscript of a play in Hope's possession), the two men seem to be in different movies, separated both by language and performance style.
Such deals between managers, and directors of football, and their clubs are commonplace in the English game, and not criminal in the slightest, of course.
There is technically a (slight) possibility of some kind of criminal prosecution as well, given that the report apparently accuses the CIA of misleading Congress and even the Bush White House about the effectiveness of torture.
Florida, for example, has put stringent restrictions on voter registration drives, imposing fines and even criminal penalties for the slightest infraction of complex rules.
That is what O'Farrell thinks your mate deserves, even though he doesn't know him or the circumstances of the offence, his criminal record, or the slightest detail about how or why it happened.
The susceptibility of even celebrated black men to be hauled off when there's even the slightest suspicion, mistaken or otherwise, of criminal wrongdoing has left many police officials red-faced with embarrassment when they realized their goof.
