Show criminal's almost expected before court ... (7)
I believe the answer is:
conduct
'show' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'criminal's almost expected before court' is the wordplay.
'criminal' becomes 'con' (abbreviation for 'convict'**).
'almost' means to remove the last letter (most of the word but not all of it).
'expected' becomes 'due' (I've seen this before).
'before' is a charade indicator (letters next to each other).
'court' becomes 'ct'.
'due' with its last letter taken away is 'du'.
'con'+'du'+'ct'='CONDUCT'
(Other definitions for conduct that I've seen before include "Behaviour; transmit" , "Guide - behaviour" .)