To nullify, void, or set aside a legal order, indictment, or subpoena. Courts quash legal documents when they find them to be invalid, improperly issued, or legally defective.
From Old French 'quasser,' meaning 'to shake' or 'to break,' derived from Latin 'quassare' (to shatter). The legal meaning developed in medieval courts to describe the act of invalidating or destroying legal documents.
When a judge 'quashes' something, they're essentially playing legal whack-a-mole - completely smashing that legal document or order so it has no power, as if it never existed in the first place!
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