Portal:Law

The LaRouche criminal trials in the mid-1980s stemmed from federal and state investigations into the activities of American political activist Lyndon LaRouche and members of his movement. They were charged with conspiring to commit fraud and soliciting loans they had no intention of repaying. LaRouche and his supporters disputed the charges, claiming the trials were politically motivated.

In 1986, hundreds of state and federal officers raided LaRouche offices in Virginia and Massachusetts. A federal grand jury in Boston indicted LaRouche and 12 associates on credit card fraud and obstruction of justice. The subsequent trial, described as an "extravaganza", was repeatedly delayed and ended in mistrial. Following the mistrial, a federal grand jury in Alexandria, Virginia, indicted LaRouche and six associates. After a short trial in 1988, LaRouche was convicted of mail fraud, conspiracy to commit mail fraud, and tax evasion, and was sentenced to prison for fifteen years. He entered prison in 1989 and was paroled five years later. At the same trial, his associates received lesser sentences for mail fraud and conspiracy. In separate state trials in Virginia and New York, 13 associates received terms ranging from one month to 77 years. The Virginia state trials were described as the highest-profile cases that the state Attorney General's office had ever prosecuted. Fourteen states issued injunctions against LaRouche-related organizations. Three LaRouche-related organizations were forced into bankruptcy after failing to pay contempt of court fines.

Defense lawyers filed numerous unsuccessful appeals that challenged the conduct of the grand jury, the contempt fines, the execution of the search warrants and various trial procedures. At least ten appeals were heard by the United States court of appeals, and three were appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. Former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark joined the defense team for two appeals. Following the convictions, the LaRouche movement mounted failed attempts at exoneration. (Full article...)

The Samlesbury witches were three women from the Lancashire village of Samlesbury – Jane Southworth, Jennet Bierley, and Ellen Bierley – accused by a 14-year-old girl, Grace Sowerbutts, of practising witchcraft. Their trial at Lancaster Assizes in England on 19 August 1612 was one in a series of witch trials held there over two days, among the most infamous in English history. The trials were unusual for England at that time in two respects: Thomas Potts, the clerk to the court, published the proceedings in his The Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Lancaster; and the number of the accused found guilty and hanged was unusually high, ten at Lancaster and another at York. All three of the Samlesbury women were acquitted.

The charges against the women included child murder and cannibalism. In contrast, the others tried at the same assizes, who included the Pendle witches, were accused of maleficium – causing harm by witchcraft. The case against the three women collapsed "spectacularly" when the chief prosecution witness, Grace Sowerbutts, was exposed by the trial judge to be "the perjuring tool of a Catholic priest". (Full article...)

A statute is a formal written enactment of a legislative body, a stage in the process of legislation. Typically, statutes command or prohibit something, or declare policy. Statutes are laws made by legislative bodies; they are distinguished from case law or precedent, which is decided by courts, regulations issued by government agencies, and oral or customary law.^{[better source needed]} Statutes may originate with the legislative body of a country, state or province, county, or municipality. (Full article...)

The Trustee Act 2000 (c. 29) is an act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that regulates the duties of trustees in English trust law. Reform in these areas had been advised as early as 1982, and finally came about through the Trustee Bill 2000, based on the Law Commission's 1999 report "Trustees' Powers and Duties", which was introduced to the House of Lords in January 2000. The bill received the Royal Assent on 23 November 2000 and came into force on 1 February 2001 through the Trustee Act 2000 (Commencement) Order 2001, a Statutory Instrument, with the Act having effect over England and Wales.

The Act covers five areas of trust law: the duty of care imposed upon trustees, trustees' power of investment, the power to appoint nominees and agents, the power to acquire land, and the power to receive remuneration for work done as a trustee. It sets a new duty of care, both objective and standard, massively extends the trustees' power of investment and limits the trustees' liability for the actions of agents, also providing for their remuneration for work done in the course of the trust. (Full article...)

• ... that the Digital Switchover (Disclosure of Information) Act 2007 allows social security information to be passed to the BBC?

• ... that after the crash of United Airlines Flight 297 in 1962, the Federal Aviation Administration created new regulations that required airplanes to better withstand bird strikes?

• ... that in Re A (conjoined twins) an English court permitted the separation of two conjoined twins knowing that one would die?

• ... that although Elizabeth Richards Tilton (pictured) was a central figure in a six-month-long trial, she was never allowed to speak in court?

• ... that under modern principles of vicarious liability in English law, employers are answerable for the intentional wrongdoings of their employees?

• ... that although John Fortescue listed ten Inns of Chancery, only nine are known?

• ... that oppositionist delegates to the Philippine Constitutional Convention of 1971 were among the first to be arrested when Ferdinand Marcos declared martial law in the Philippines?

Case law, also used interchangeably with common law, is a law that is based on precedents, that is the judicial decisions from previous cases, rather than law based on constitutions, statutes, or regulations. Case law uses the detailed facts of a legal case that have been resolved by courts or similar tribunals. These past decisions are called "case law", or precedent. Stare decisis—a Latin phrase meaning "let the decision stand"—is the principle by which judges are bound to such past decisions, drawing on established judicial authority to formulate their positions. (Full article...)

Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, 347 U.S. 483 (1954), was a landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that U.S. state laws establishing racial segregation in public schools are unconstitutional, even if the segregated schools are otherwise equal in quality. The decision partially overruled the Court's 1896 decision, Plessy v. Ferguson, which held that racial segregation laws did not violate the U.S. Constitution as long as the facilities for each race were equal in quality, a doctrine that had come to be known as "separate but equal." The Court's unanimous decision in Brown and its related cases paved the way for integration, was a major victory of the civil rights movement, and a model for many future impact litigation cases.

The case originated in 1951 when the public school system in Topeka, Kansas, refused to enroll local black resident Oliver Brown's daughter at the school closest to their home, instead requiring her to ride a bus to a segregated black school farther away. The Browns and twelve other local black families in similar situations filed a class-action lawsuit in U.S. federal court against the Topeka Board of Education, alleging that its segregation policy was unconstitutional. A special three-judge court of the U.S. District Court for the District of Kansas heard the case and ruled against the Browns, relying on the precedent of Plessy and its "separate but equal" doctrine. The Browns, represented by NAACP chief counsel Thurgood Marshall, then appealed the ruling directly to the Supreme Court. (Full article...)

• ... that the Campanha da Legalidade was a mobilization led by Governor Leonel Brizola to guarantee the inauguration of João Goulart as the 24th president of Brazil?
• ... that New Zealand activist Pania Newton gave up a legal career to become an activist and spokesperson for the preservation of her ancestral lands at Ihumātao?
• ... that 2000 Alabama Amendment 2, which repealed the state's anti-miscegenation laws, was carefully written to avoid legalizing same-sex marriage?
• ... that Freedom of Religion South Africa filed an unsuccessful lawsuit to keep child spanking legal?
• ... that Hirsch Sommerhausen worked as a court translator in a dozen languages?
• ... that thanks to the advocate general's opinion, one is likely to know the outcome of a court case before the European Court of Justice before it even starts drafting the ruling?

• April 28: Reports: US judge Matthew Kacsmaryk redacted name of corporation he owned stock in on disclosure forms
• April 22: Russia sentences opposition activist Vladimir Kara-Murza to 25 years in penal colony
• April 21: Paris judge acquits Airbus, Air France of involuntary manslaughter in 2009 crash that killed 228
• April 12: Russian authorities charge US reporter Evan Gershkovich with espionage
• April 11: Maryland, US attorney general's office alleges historic child sexual abuse by Catholic Church officials
• April 10: Former US President Donald Trump pleads not guilty to 34 felony charges in Manhattan
• April 5: Russia charges peace activist in assassination of pro-war blogger in Saint Petersburg
• April 2: 'Unfounded and unsubstantiated': London policemen cleared of beating Muslim
• March 29: 'Carlos the Jackal' on trial in France for third life sentence
• March 13: Sydney, Australia woman who "spontaneously" murdered boyfriend in "fatal explosion of emotion" sentenced
• March 9: Islamabad High Court temporarily suspends arrest warrant against former Pakistani PM Imran Khan
• February 26: Canadian soldier who filmed himself sexually abusing colleague has appeal dismissed