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Murder Of Robert Schwartz
The murder of Robert Schwartz occurred on December 8, 2001, in Leesburg, Virginia. The crime was orchestrated by his 20-year-old daughter, Clara Jane Schwartz, as part of a fantasy role-playing game. The killing itself was perpetuated by her friend 18-year-old Kyle Hulbert, who had a history of mental illness, with 21-year-old Michael Pfohl and 19-year-old Katherine Inglis also being accessories to the crime. The case made national headlines due to Schwartz's prominence in the scientific community and for claims that his murder was related to role-playing games and the occult. Background Robert Schwartz was a nationally renowned scientist in the field of biometrics and DNA research. In 1978, he was co-author with Margaret Dayhoff of a key paper in ''Science'' providing the first experimental evidence of Lynn Margulis' theory of the symbiogenetic origin of cellular mitochondria and chloroplasts. In 1992, Schwartz was a founding member of the Virginia Biotechnology Association. He ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Leesburg, Virginia
Leesburg is a town in the state of Virginia, and the county seat of Loudoun County. Settlement in the area began around 1740, which is named for the Lee family, early leaders of the town and ancestors of Robert E. Lee. Located in the far northeast of the state, in the War of 1812 it was a refuge for important federal documents evacuated from Washington, DC, and in the Civil War, it changed hands several times. Leesburg is west-northwest of Washington, D.C., along the base of Catoctin Mountain and close to the Potomac River. The town is the northwestern terminus of the Dulles Greenway, a private toll road that connects to the Dulles Toll Road at Washington Dulles International Airport. Its population was 48,250 as of the 2020 Census and an estimated 48,908 in 2021. It is Virginia's largest incorporated town within a county (rather than being an independent city). Leesburg, like much of Loudoun County, has undergone considerable growth and development over the last 30 years, tr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Conspiracy To Commit Murder
Conspiracy to murder is a statutory offence defined by the intent to commit murder. England and Wales The offence of conspiracy to murder was created in statutory law by section 4 of the Offences Against the Person Act 1861 and retained as an offence by virtue of section 1(1) of the Criminal Law Act 1977. '' Mens rea'': Although an intention to cause grievous bodily harm is sufficient for murder, it is not sufficient for conspiracy to murder. Jurisdiction Section 1(4) of the Criminal Law Act 1977 formerly provided that it was immaterial that the murder in question would not be triable in England and Wales if committed in accordance with the intention of the parties to the agreement. This reproduced the effect of section 4 of the 1861 Act. See now section 1A of the Criminal Law Act 1977. Sentence A person guilty of conspiracy to murder is liable to imprisonment for life or for any shorter term. As to the maximum sentence in a case where the agreement was entered int ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Life Imprisonment
Life imprisonment is any sentence of imprisonment for a crime under which convicted people are to remain in prison for the rest of their natural lives or indefinitely until pardoned, paroled, or otherwise commuted to a fixed term. Crimes for which, in some countries, a person could receive this sentence include murder, torture, terrorism, child abuse resulting in death, rape, espionage, treason, drug trafficking, drug possession, human trafficking, severe fraud and financial crimes, aggravated criminal damage, arson, kidnapping, burglary, and robbery, piracy, aircraft hijacking, and genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes or any three felonies in case of three-strikes law. Life imprisonment (as a maximum term) can also be imposed, in certain countries, for traffic offences causing death. Life imprisonment is not used in all countries; Portugal was the first country to abolish life imprisonment, in 1884. Where life imprisonment is a possible sentence, there may als ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
United States Court Of Appeals For The Fourth Circuit
The United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit (in case citations, 4th Cir.) is a federal court located in Richmond, Virginia, with appellate jurisdiction over the district courts in the following districts: * District of Maryland *Eastern District of North Carolina * Middle District of North Carolina *Western District of North Carolina * District of South Carolina * Eastern District of Virginia * Western District of Virginia * Northern District of West Virginia *Southern District of West Virginia The court is based at the Lewis F. Powell Jr. United States Courthouse in Richmond, Virginia. With 15 authorized judgeships, it is mid-sized among the 13 United States Courts of Appeals. __TOC__ Current composition of the court : Vacancies and pending nominations List of former judges Chief judges Succession of seats ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Troy, Virginia
Troy is an unincorporated community in Fluvanna County, Virginia, United States. It lies just west of U.S. Route 15, between Zion Crossroads to the north and the county seat of Palmyra to the south. Troy's existence was defined by the Virginia Air Line Railway, which operated from 1908 to 1975. In 1998, the Virginia Department of Corrections opened the Fluvanna Correctional Center for Women in the area. History Previously called Clarksland, the location is named after "Captain" T. O. Troy, president of the now-defunct Virginia Air Line Railway. When construction on the rail line to connect Lindsay and Strathmore began in October 1906, the railway stop in Clarkland consisted of little more than a shed. Around May 1908, Troy built a full rail agency station in the community to become the cornerstone of the area's prosperity. The agency shared a building with the town general store, operated by James Hasher. The railroad was completed and began operating in October 1908. However ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fluvanna Correctional Center For Women
Fluvanna Correctional Center for Women is a prison operated by the Virginia Department of Corrections. It has a Troy postal address, and is in unincorporated Fluvanna County, about northwest of Richmond. The security level 3 facility housed 1,199 female inmates as of June 2008, including formerly housing the women's death row for the Commonwealth of Virginia. History Fluvanna County became a candidate for a new women's prison after the Board of Supervisors of Bedford County rejected a 1992 proposal by the Virginia Department of Corrections for a new 600-inmate facility in Lynchburg, Virginia that would have created between 250 and 300 jobs. Construction began on in Fluvanna along U.S. Route 250 in January 1996, with initial plans to open by August 1997. Completed at a cost of $53.1 million, the correctional center was opened in April 1998, starting with about 800 prisoners. The facility is the second in the state dedicated to housing only female inmates, after the Virginia Cor ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
First-degree Murder
Murder is the unlawful killing of another human without justification or valid excuse, especially the unlawful killing of another human with malice aforethought. ("The killing of another person without justification or excuse, especially the crime of killing a person with malice aforethought or with recklessness manifesting extreme indifference to the value of human life.") This state of mind may, depending upon the jurisdiction, distinguish murder from other forms of unlawful homicide, such as manslaughter. Manslaughter is killing committed in the absence of ''malice'',This is "malice" in a technical legal sense, not the more usual English sense denoting an emotional state. See malice (law). brought about by reasonable provocation, or diminished capacity. ''Involuntary'' manslaughter, where it is recognized, is a killing that lacks all but the most attenuated guilty intent, recklessness. Most societies consider murder to be an extremely serious crime, and thus that a per ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Conviction
In law, a conviction is the verdict reached by a court of law finding a defendant guilty of a crime. The opposite of a conviction is an acquittal (that is, "not guilty"). In Scotland, there can also be a verdict of "not proven", which is considered an acquittal. Sometimes, despite a defendant being found guilty, the court may order that the defendant not be convicted. This is known as a discharge and is used in countries such as England, Wales, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. The criminal justice system is not perfect and there are instances in which guilty defendants are acquitted and innocent people are convicted. Appeal mechanisms and post conviction relief procedures may help to address this issue to some extent. An error leading to the conviction of an innocent person is known as a miscarriage of justice. After a defendant is convicted, the court determines the appropriate sentence as a punishment. In addition to the sentence, a conviction can also have other consequ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Will And Testament
A will or testament is a legal document that expresses a person's (testator) wishes as to how their property ( estate) is to be distributed after their death and as to which person ( executor) is to manage the property until its final distribution. For the distribution (devolution) of property not determined by a will, see inheritance and intestacy. Though it has at times been thought that a "will" historically applied only to real property while "testament" applied only to personal property (thus giving rise to the popular title of the document as "last will and testament"), the historical records show that the terms have been used interchangeably. Thus, the word "will" validly applies to both personal and real property. A will may also create a testamentary trust that is effective only after the death of the testator. History Throughout most of the world, the disposition of a dead person's estate has been a matter of social custom. According to Plutarch, the written will was ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Natural Causes
In many legal jurisdictions, the manner of death is a determination, typically made by the coroner, medical examiner, police, or similar officials, and recorded as a vital statistic. Within the United States and the United Kingdom, a distinction is made between the cause of death, which is a specific disease or injury, versus manner of death, which is primarily a legal determination versus the mechanism of death (also called the mode of death) which does not explain why the person died or the underlying cause of death and can include cardiac arrest or exsanguination. Different categories are used in different jurisdictions, but manner of death determinations include everything from very broad categories like "natural" and "homicide" to specific manners like "traffic accident" or "gunshot wound". In some cases an autopsy is performed, either due to general legal requirements, because the medical cause of death is uncertain, upon the request of family members or guardians, or be ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Prosecution
A prosecutor is a legal representative of the prosecution in states with either the common law adversarial system or the civil law inquisitorial system. The prosecution is the legal party responsible for presenting the case in a criminal trial against an individual accused of breaking the law. Typically, the prosecutor represents the state or the government in the case brought against the accused person. Prosecutor as a legal professional Prosecutors are typically lawyers who possess a law degree, and are recognised as suitable legal professionals by the court in which they are acting. This may mean they have been admitted to the bar, or obtained a comparable qualification where available - such as solicitor advocates in England and Wales. They become involved in a criminal case once a suspect has been identified and charges need to be filed. They are employed by an office of the government, with safeguards in place to ensure such an office can successfully pursue the prosec ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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