locus poenitentiae

English

Etymology

From Latin, literally "place of repentance".

Noun

locus poenitentiae (uncountable)

1. (law) The opportunity to withdraw from an ongoing process of committing oneself to an obligation, before such commitment is finalized; specifically, the opportunity to abstain from committing an intended crime before it is too late.
   • 1860 January – 1861 April, Anthony Trollope, “The Philistines at the Parsonage”, in Framley Parsonage. […] (Collection of British Authors; 551), copyright edition, volume I, Leipzig: Bernhard Tauchnitz, published April 1861, →OCLC, page 250:

     There was yet within him the means of repentance, could a locus penitentiæ^[sic] have been supplied to him. He grieved bitterly over his own ill doings, and knew well what changes gentlehood would have demanded from him. Whether or no he had gone too far for all changes—whether the locus penitentiæ was for him still a possibility—that was between him and a higher power.