in the act
(idiomatic) In the process of doing something considered criminal or otherwise wrong; used to emphasize the eye-witness evidence.
She denied it but she had been spotted in the act.
He was caught in the act in the store after hours.
He was caught in the act of climbing out the window.
The consequences of every act are included in the act itself. George Orwell
It's in the act of having to do things that you don't want to that you learn something about moving past the self. Past the ego. Bell hooks
Our fathers valued change for the sake of its results; we value it in the act. Alice Meynell
There was an ancient Roman lawyer, of great fame in the history of Roman jurisprudence, whom they called Cui Bono, from his having first introduced into judicial proceedings the argument, "What end or object could the party have had in the act with which he is accused." Edmund Burke
Attempting to liberate the oppressed without their reflective participation in the act of liberation is to treat them as objects that must be saved from a burning building. Paulo Freire
We would be deliberately violating the fundamental obligations we assumed in the Act of Bogota establishing the Organization of American States. J. William Fulbright