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United States National Sex Offenders Public Registry
The Dru Sjodin National Sex Offender Public Registry is a cooperative effort between U.S. state agencies that host public sex offender registries and the U.S. federal government. The registry is coordinated by the United States Department of Justice and operates a web site search tool allowing a user to submit a single query to obtain information about sex offenders throughout the United States. Purpose State sex-offender registration and notification programs are designed, in general, to include information about offenders who have been convicted of a "criminal offense against a victim who is a minor" or a "sexually violent offense," as specified in the Jacob Wetterling Crimes Against Children and Sexually Violent Offender Registration Act ("the Wetterling Act") – more specifically, information about persons convicted of offenses involving sexual molestation or sexual exploitation of children, and persons convicted of rape and rape-like offenses (regardless of the age of the vi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Murder Of Dru Sjodin
Dru Katrina Sjodin (September 26, 1981 – November 22, 2003) was an American woman who was abducted from the Columbia Mall parking lot in Grand Forks, North Dakota, by Alfonso Rodriguez Jr., on November 22, 2003. Her disappearance and murder garnered great media coverage throughout the United States and prompted the creation of the Dru Sjodin National Sex Offender Public Registry. Murder At 4:00 p.m. on Saturday, November 22, 2003, Sjodin, a 22-year-old college student at the University of North Dakota and Gamma Phi Beta sorority member, finished her shift at the Victoria's Secret store located in the Columbia Mall in Grand Forks, North Dakota. After shopping for and purchasing a new purse from Marshall Field's, Sjodin left the mall and began walking to her 1994 Oldsmobile Cutlass. During this time, Sjodin was speaking with her boyfriend, Chris Lang, on her cell phone. Four minutes into their conversation, Lang reports Sjodin was saying "Okay, okay," before the call a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Substantive Due Process
Substantive due process is a principle in United States constitutional law that allows courts to establish and protect certain fundamental rights from government interference, even if only procedural protections are present or the rights are unenumerated elsewhere in the U.S. Constitution. Courts have asserted that such protections come from the due process clauses of the Fifth and Fourteenth amendments to the U.S. Constitution, which prohibit the federal and state governments, respectively, from depriving any person of "life, liberty, or property, without due process of law". Substantive due process demarks the line between those acts that courts hold to be subject to government regulation or legislation and those that courts place beyond the reach of governmental interference. Whether the Fifth or Fourteenth Amendments were intended to serve that function continues to be a matter of scholarly as well as judicial discussion and dissent. Justice Clarence Thomas has called on th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kansas City, Missouri
Kansas City (abbreviated KC or KCMO) is the largest city in Missouri by population and area. As of the 2020 census, the city had a population of 508,090 in 2020, making it the 36th most-populous city in the United States. It is the central city of the Kansas City metropolitan area, which straddles the Missouri–Kansas state line and has a population of 2,392,035. Most of the city lies within Jackson County, with portions spilling into Clay, Cass, and Platte counties. Kansas City was founded in the 1830s as a port on the Missouri River at its confluence with the Kansas River coming in from the west. On June 1, 1850, the town of Kansas was incorporated; shortly after came the establishment of the Kansas Territory. Confusion between the two ensued, and the name Kansas City was assigned to distinguish them soon after. Sitting on Missouri's western boundary with Kansas, with Downtown near the confluence of the Kansas and Missouri Rivers, the city encompasses about , making ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Missouri Court Of Appeals
The Missouri Court of Appeals is the intermediate appellate court for the state of Missouri. The court handles most of the appeals from the Missouri Circuit Courts. The court is divided into three geographic districts: Eastern (based in St. Louis), Western (based in Kansas City), and Southern (based in Springfield). For example, appeals taken from trials in St. Louis County will go to the Eastern District, and appeals taken from trials in Jackson County (Kansas City) will go to the Western District. After a case is decided in the Court of Appeals, the losing party may choose to accept the result, or to appeal further to the Supreme Court of Missouri. In most appeals, the Supreme Court of Missouri may, and often does, reject an appeal from the Court of Appeals (called "discretionary jurisdiction"). Historically, less than ten percent of the appeals heard by the Missouri Court of Appeals are transferred to the Supreme Court. Thus, for the vast majority of appeals, the Cour ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Injunction
An injunction is a legal and equitable remedy in the form of a special court order that compels a party to do or refrain from specific acts. ("The court of appeals ... has exclusive jurisdiction to enjoin, set aside, suspend (in whole or in part), or to determine the validity of...."); ("Limit on injunctive relief'); '' Jennings v. Rodriguez'', 583 U.S. ___, ___138 S.Ct. 830 851 (2018); '' Wheaton College v. Burwell''134 S.Ct. 2806 2810-11 (2014) ("Under our precedents, an injunction is appropriate only if (1) it is necessary or appropriate in aid of our jurisdiction, and (2) the legal rights at issue are indisputably clear.") (internal quotation marks and brackets omitted); '' Lux v. Rodrigues''561 U.S. 1306 1308 (2010); ''Correctional Services Corp. v. Malesko''534 U.S. 61 74 (2001) (stating that "injunctive relief has long been recognized as the proper means for preventing entities from acting unconstitutionally."); '' Nken v. Holder''556 U.S. 418(2009); see also ''Alli v. D ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Missouri Circuit Courts
The Missouri Circuit Courts are the state trial courts of original jurisdiction and general jurisdiction of the state of Missouri. Jurisdiction The Missouri Constitution provides for the Circuit Courts in Article V, Judicial Department. List of circuits There are 46 judicial circuits, each with various divisions, including associate circuit, small claims, municipal, family, probate, criminal, and juvenile. Each circuit covers at least one of Missouri's 114 counties and one independent city, St. Louis. *1st Judicial Circuit – Clark County, Schuyler County, Scotland County *2nd Judicial Circuit – Adair County, Knox County, Lewis County *3rd Judicial Circuit – Grundy County, Harrison County, Mercer County, Putnam County *4th Judicial Circuit – Atchison County, Gentry County, Holt County, Nodaway County, Worth County *5th Judicial Circuit – Andrew County, Buchanan County *6th Judicial Circuit – Platte County *7th Judicial Circuit – Clay County *8t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Guilty Plea
In legal terms, a plea is simply an answer to a claim made by someone in a criminal case under common law (legal system), common law using the adversarial system. Colloquially, a plea has come to mean the assertion by a defendant at arraignment, or otherwise in response to a indictment, criminal charge, whether that person pleaded or pled guilt (law), guilty, not guilty, ''nolo contendere'' (a.k.a. no contest), no case to answer (in the United Kingdom), or Alford plea (in the United States). The concept of the plea is one of the significant differences between criminal procedure under common law and procedure under the civil law (legal system), civil law system. Under common law, a defendant who pleads guilty is automatically convicted, and the remainder of the trial is used to determine the sentence (law), sentence. This produces a system known as plea bargaining, in which defendants may plead guilty in exchange for a more lenient punishment. In civil law jurisdictions, a confe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Conviction (law)
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 con ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Supreme Court Of Missouri
The Supreme Court of Missouri is the highest court in the state of Missouri. It was established in 1820 and is located at 207 West High Street in Jefferson City, Missouri. Missouri voters have approved changes in the state's constitution to give the Supreme Court exclusive jurisdiction – the sole legal power to hear – over five types of cases on appeal. Pursuant to Article V, Section 3 of the Missouri Constitution, these cases involve: *The validity of a United States statute or treaty. *The validity of a Missouri statute or constitutional provision. *The state's revenue laws. *Challenges to a statewide elected official's right to hold office. *Imposition of the death penalty. Unless their case involves one of those five issues, people who want a trial court's decision reviewed must appeal to the Missouri Court of Appeals. Most of these cases involve routine legal questions and end there. The Court of Appeals is divided geographically into the Eastern District, Western Distr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Missouri Constitution
The Missouri Constitution is the state constitution of the U.S. State of Missouri. It is the supreme law formulating the law and government of Missouri, subject only to the federal Constitution, and the people. The fourth and current Missouri Constitution was adopted in 1945. It provides for three branches of government: legislative (the Missouri General Assembly), executive (the Governor of Missouri), and judicial (the Supreme Court of Missouri). It also sets up local governments in the form of counties and cities. History The first constitution was written in 1820 in only 38 days, and was adopted on July 19, 1820. One of the results of the Missouri Compromise, Missouri was initially admitted to the Union as a slave state, and the constitution specifically excluded "free negroes and mulattoes" from the state. This "exclusion clause" initially forestalled the US Congress admitting Missouri to the union, but was chosen to be interpreted in a deliberately vague manner as a "secon ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Amicus Curiae
An ''amicus curiae'' (; ) is an individual or organization who is not a party to a legal case, but who is permitted to assist a court by offering information, expertise, or insight that has a bearing on the issues in the case. The decision on whether to consider an ''amicus'' brief lies within the discretion of the court. The phrase is legal Latin and the origin of the term has been dated to 1605–1615. The scope of ''amici curiae'' is generally found in the cases where broad public interests are involved and concerns regarding civil rights are in question. In American law, an ''amicus curiae'' typically refers to what in some other jurisdictions is known as an intervenor: a person or organization who requests to provide legal submissions so as to offer a relevant alternative or additional perspective regarding the matters in dispute. In the American courts, the amicus may be referred to as an ''amicus'' brief. In other jurisdictions, such as Canada, an ''amicus curiae'' is a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
RSOL
The National Association for Rational Sexual Offense Laws (NARSOL) is a national civil rights and justice reform organization headquartered in Raleigh, North Carolina with operations based in Albuquerque, New Mexico and with affiliated organizations, advocates, and contacts in the vast majority of states. NARSOL and its affiliates are part of the growing movement to reform sexual offense laws in the United States. NARSOL asserts that while sex offender registries in the United States were originally well-intentioned and for the most heinous and dangerous sex offenders only, their reach has exponentially widened to include petty offenses such as teen sexting and consensual relations between young people. NARSOL has generated media attention by arranging national conferences in multiple cities including Boston, Albuquerque, Los Angeles Dallas, Atlanta, Cleveland, Houston, and Raleigh, and by being involved in numerous lawsuits challenging the constitutionality of sex offender regist ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
