no conviction

"No conviction" means, in journalistic and true-crime usage, that no judicial decision in the form of a judgment has been handed down in the criminal case in question. Under Danish law it is not an independent legal category, but a descriptive formulation marking the absence of a finding of guilt or an acquittal by a Danish court.

Under the Danish Administration of Justice Act (retsplejeloven) § 883, a judgment in a criminal case must either convict or acquit, unless the case is dismissed. Where none of these outcomes has occurred — for example because the case has been dropped, charges were never brought, or the investigation was discontinued — it can be said that no judgment exists. This is the situation the expression covers.

When a person is described as having "no conviction", it means that in legal terms that person has not been convicted, regardless of any suspicion, charge or public attention that may otherwise exist. The expression matters in crime journalism because it marks a decisive legal distinction: a person is innocent until the opposite is proven by judgment. That a case has been reported on, investigated or brought before the court is not the same as a conviction, and "no conviction" serves as a precise reminder of that line.

The concept has no independent basis in the Danish Penal Code (straffeloven), but refers to the fundamental structure of Danish criminal procedure, in which the judgment is the formal decision establishing guilt and punishment.