Gerry Spence
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Gerry Spence
Gerald Leonard Spence (born January 8, 1929) is a semi-retired American trial lawyer. He is a member of the Trial Lawyer Hall of Fame. Spence has never lost a criminal case before a jury either as a prosecutor or a defense attorney, and has not lost a civil case since 1969. Background Spence graduated from the University of Wyoming in 1949 and from the University of Wyoming College of Law in 1952 and was first in his class. He was awarded an honorary Doctor of Laws degree in May 1990. He started his career in Riverton, Wyoming, and later became a successful defense attorney for the insurance industry. Years later, Spence said he "saw the light" and became committed to representing people instead of corporations, insurance companies, banks, or "big business." From 1954 to 1962 he served as prosecuting attorney of Fremont County, Wyoming. Gerry Spence and his second wife, Imaging, share their time between their homes in Dubois, Wyoming, and Santa Barbara, California. Despite ha ...
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Laramie, Wyoming
Laramie is a city in and the county seat of Albany County, Wyoming, United States. The population was estimated 32,711 in 2019, making it the third-largest city in Wyoming after Cheyenne and Casper. Located on the Laramie River in southeastern Wyoming, the city is north west of Cheyenne, at the junction of Interstate 80 and U.S. Route 287. Laramie was settled in the mid-19th century along the Union Pacific Railroad line, which crosses the Laramie River at Laramie. It is home to the University of Wyoming, WyoTech, and a branch of Laramie County Community College. Laramie Regional Airport serves Laramie. The ruins of Fort Sanders, an army fort predating Laramie, lie just south of the city along Route 287. Located in the Laramie Valley between the Snowy Range and the Laramie Range, the city draws outdoor enthusiasts with its abundance of outdoor activities. In 2011, Laramie was named as one of the best cities in which to retire by ''Money Magazine'', which cited its scenic loc ...
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Supreme Court Of The United States
The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point of federal law. It also has original jurisdiction over a narrow range of cases, specifically "all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, and those in which a State shall be Party." The court holds the power of judicial review, the ability to invalidate a statute for violating a provision of the Constitution. It is also able to strike down presidential directives for violating either the Constitution or statutory law. However, it may act only within the context of a case in an area of law over which it has jurisdiction. The court may decide cases having political overtones, but has ruled that it does not have power to decide non-justiciable political questions. Established by Article Three of the United States ...
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Ed Cantrell
Ed Cantrell (December 21, 1927 – June 11, 2004) was the public safety director of Rock Springs, Wyoming, a town tied to widespread corruption, who killed one of his own officers in 1978 but was acquitted after trial. The son of Samuel Glenn Cantrell, a Nazarene minister and Vesta Marie (née Robinson) Cantrell, Ed was born in Bloomington, Indiana. He excelled in sports and graduated from Plainfield High School in 1945 with a football and basketball scholarship. Aspiring to be a coach, he had almost completed three years at Indiana State College when President Truman ordered the Berlin airlift in 1948. Cantrell immediately enlisted in the Army and spent three years as a military policeman in the "bombed-out ruin" south of Frankfurt, Germany. His tour of duty was then extended due to the Korean War. Upon discharge, he graduated with honors from the Indiana State Police Academy. An avid hunter, fisherman and marksman, he later visited Wyoming and decided to relocate there. Acce ...
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Entrapment
Entrapment is a practice in which a law enforcement agent or agent of the state induces a person to commit a "crime" that the person would have otherwise been unlikely or unwilling to commit.''Sloane'' (1990) 49 A Crim R 270. See also agent provocateur It "is the conception and planning of an offense by an officer or agent, and the procurement of its commission by one who would not have perpetrated it except for the trickery, persuasion or fraud of the officer or state agent". Police conduct rising to the level of entrapment is broadly discouraged and thus, in many jurisdictions, is available as a defense against criminal liability. Sting operations, through which police officers or agents engage in deception to try to catch persons who are committing crimes, raise concerns about possible entrapment. Depending on the law in the jurisdiction, the prosecution may be required to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant was not entrapped or the defendant may be required to ...
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Crime Lab
A crime laboratory, often shortened to crime lab, is a scientific laboratory, using primarily forensic science for the purpose of examining evidence from criminal cases. Lab personnel A typical crime lab has two sets of personnel: *Field analysts – investigators that go to crime scenes, collect evidence, and process the scene. Job titles include: **Forensic evidence technician **Crime scene investigator **Scenes of crime officer (SOCO) *Laboratory analysts – scientists or other personnel who run tests on the evidence once it is brought to the lab (i.e., DNA tests, or bullet striations). Job titles include: **Forensic Technician (performs support functions such as making reagents) **Forensic Scientist/Criminalist (performs scientific analyses on evidence) **Fingerprint Analyst **Forensic Photographer **Forensic Document Examiner **Forensic Entomologist Crime labs United States In the United States, crime labs may be publicly or privately operated, although private labo ...
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Federal Bureau Of Investigation
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic intelligence and security service of the United States and its principal federal law enforcement agency. Operating under the jurisdiction of the United States Department of Justice, the FBI is also a member of the U.S. Intelligence Community and reports to both the Attorney General and the Director of National Intelligence. A leading U.S. counterterrorism, counterintelligence, and criminal investigative organization, the FBI has jurisdiction over violations of more than 200 categories of federal crimes. Although many of the FBI's functions are unique, its activities in support of national security are comparable to those of the British MI5 and NCA; the New Zealand GCSB and the Russian FSB. Unlike the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), which has no law enforcement authority and is focused on intelligence collection abroad, the FBI is primarily a domestic agency, maintaining 56 field offices in major cities throug ...
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Idaho
Idaho ( ) is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. To the north, it shares a small portion of the Canada–United States border with the province of British Columbia. It borders the states of Montana and Wyoming to the east, Nevada and Utah to the south, and Washington and Oregon to the west. The state's capital and largest city is Boise. With an area of , Idaho is the 14th largest state by land area, but with a population of approximately 1.8 million, it ranks as the 13th least populous and the 7th least densely populated of the 50 U.S. states. For thousands of years, and prior to European colonization, Idaho has been inhabited by native peoples. In the early 19th century, Idaho was considered part of the Oregon Country, an area of dispute between the U.S. and the British Empire. It officially became U.S. territory with the signing of the Oregon Treaty of 1846, but a separate Idaho Territory was not organized until 1863, instead ...
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Ruby Ridge
Ruby Ridge was the site of an eleven-day siege in 1992 in Boundary County, Idaho, near Naples. It began on August 21, when deputies of the United States Marshals Service (USMS) initiated action to apprehend and arrest Randy Weaver under a bench warrant after his failure to appear on firearms charges. Weaver refused to surrender, and members of his immediate family, and family friend Kevin Harris, resisted as well. The Hostage Rescue Team of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI HRT) became involved as the siege developed. During the USMS reconnaissance of the Weaver property, six U.S. Marshals encountered Harris and Sammy, Weaver's 14-year-old son, in woods near the family cabin. A shootout took place. Deputy U.S. Marshal William Francis Degan, Sammy Weaver, and the Weavers' dog, Striker, all died as a result. In the subsequent siege of the Weaver residence, led by the FBI, Weaver's wife Vicki was killed by FBI sniper fire. All casualties occurred in the first two days of the ...
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Randy Weaver
Randall Claude Weaver (January 3, 1948 – May 11, 2022) was an American survivalist, former Iowa factory worker, and self-proclaimed white separatist. He was a central actor in the 1992 Ruby Ridge standoff at his cabin near Naples, Idaho, that resulted in the deaths of his wife and son. Weaver was charged with murder, conspiracy, and assault as well as other crimes. He was acquitted of most of the charges, but was convicted of failing to appear in court on a previous weapons charge and sentenced to 18 months in prison. His family eventually received a total of $3,100,000 in compensation for the killing of his wife and son by federal agents. Early life Randy Weaver was born on January 3, 1948, to Clarence and Wilma Weaver, a farming couple in Villisca, Iowa. He was one of four children. The Weavers were deeply religious and had difficulty finding a denomination that matched their views; they often moved around among Evangelical, Presbyterian, and Baptist churches. After gradu ...
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Appeal
In law, an appeal is the process in which cases are reviewed by a higher authority, where parties request a formal change to an official decision. Appeals function both as a process for error correction as well as a process of clarifying and interpreting law. Although appellate courts have existed for thousands of years, common law countries did not incorporate an affirmative right to appeal into their jurisprudence until the 19th century. History Appellate courts and other systems of error correction have existed for many millennia. During the first dynasty of Babylon, Hammurabi and his governors served as the highest appellate courts of the land. Ancient Roman law recognized the right to appeal in the Valerian and Porcian laws since 509 BC. Later it employed a complex hierarchy of appellate courts, where some appeals would be heard by the emperor. Additionally, appellate courts have existed in Japan since at least the Kamakura Shogunate (1185–1333 CE). During this time, ...
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Newport, Oregon
Newport is a city in Lincoln County, Oregon, United States. It was incorporated in 1882, though the name dates back to the establishment of a post office in 1868. Newport was named for Newport, Rhode Island. As of the 2010 census, the city had a total population of 9,989, an increase of nearly 5% over its 2000 population; as of 2019, it had an estimated population of 10,853. The area was originally home to the Yacona tribe, whose history can be traced back at least 3000 years. White settlers began homesteading the area in 1864. The town was named by Sam Case, who also became the first postmaster. Newport has been the county seat of Lincoln County since 1952, when voters approved a measure to move the center of government from nearby Toledo to Newport. It is also home of the Oregon Coast Aquarium, Hatfield Marine Science Center, Nye Beach, Yaquina Head Light, Yaquina Bay Light, Pacific Maritime Heritage Center and Rogue Ales, and is notable as the western terminus of U.S. R ...
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Bench Trial
A bench trial is a trial by judge, as opposed to a trial by jury. The term applies most appropriately to any administrative hearing in relation to a summary offense to distinguish the type of trial. Many legal systems (Roman, Islamic) use bench trials for most or all cases or for certain types of cases. While a jury renders a verdict, a judge in a bench trial does the same by making a finding. United Kingdom England and Wales The majority of civil trials proceed without a jury and are heard by a judge sitting alone. Summary criminal trials may be heard by a single district judge (magistrates' court) or by a panel of at least two, but more usually three, magistrates. Section 47 Criminal Justice Act 2003 does allow a bench trial for indictable offences, but is rarely used, having been exercised only two times since its inception. Scotland Most civil trials in Scotland are conducted in a sheriff court by a sheriff sitting alone. In the Court of Session, a judge in either ...
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