Explanation of the Rule of Avoiding Punishment in Iranian Penal Law and its Equivalent Concept in U.S. Criminal Law

One of the most important criminal laws, which is the common ground for ​​Islamic law and the Iranian and U.S. criminal system, is rule of avoidance of punishment (darā’). The spirit of this rule means that in case of doubt or mistake of law or mistake of fact or doubt in assigning a criminal act by the judge or doubt in criminal liability, criminal liability and punishment are excluded. The importance of this article is that the less-known capacities and functions of this rule will be shown to the addressee and through a comparative study new achievements are made that are useful in order to improve the rules and procedures of judiciary. The research procedure of this paper is carried out by library method and legal texts and codified laws have been used. The basic question that exists in this regard is that, “what is the equivalent to the rule of darā’ in the U.S. criminal justice system?” And what are its functions? The most important conclusion that can be drawn from the present paper is that the U.S. criminal justice system does not have a firm and clear set of rules about the mistakes of the law and has followed different criteria.