Make prisoners almost honest in front of court (9)
I believe the answer is:
construct
'make' is the definition.
(I know that construct is a kind of make)
'prisoners almost honest in front of court' is the wordplay.
'prisoners' becomes 'cons' (short for convicts).
'almost' means to remove the last letter (almost the whole word is kept).
'honest' becomes 'true' (associated in meaning).
'in front of' is a charade indicator (letters next to each other) (some letters go in front of others).
'court' becomes 'ct' (abbreviation used in road names).
'true' with its final letter taken away is 'tru'.
'cons'+'tru'+'ct'='CONSTRUCT'
(Other definitions for construct that I've seen before include "Build or put parts together" , "Engineer" , "Get building" , "Put together out of components or parts" , "Build, make" .)