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Duress In American Law
In jurisprudence, duress or coercion refers to a situation whereby a person performs an act as a result of violence, threat, or other pressure against the person. ''Black's Law Dictionary'' (6th ed.) defines duress as "any unlawful threat or coercion used... to induce another to act r not actin a manner heyotherwise would not r would. Duress is pressure exerted upon a person to coerce that person to perform an act they ordinarily would not perform. The notion of duress must be distinguished both from undue influence in the civil law. In criminal law, duress and necessity are different defenses. Duress has two aspects. One is that it negates the person's consent to an act, such as sexual activity or the entering into a contract; or, secondly, as a possible legal defense or justification to an otherwise unlawful act. Defendants utilizing the duress defense admit to breaking the law but claim that they are not liable because, even though the act broke the law, it was only perfo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jurisprudence
Jurisprudence, also known as theory of law or philosophy of law, is the examination in a general perspective of what law is and what it ought to be. It investigates issues such as the definition of law; legal validity; legal norms and values; and the relationship between law and other fields of study, including Law and economics, economics, Applied ethics, ethics, Legal history, history, Sociology of law, sociology, and political philosophy. Modern jurisprudence began in the 18th century and was based on the first principles of natural law, Civil law (legal system), civil law, and the law of nations. Contemporary philosophy of law addresses problems internal to law and legal systems and problems of law as a social institution that relates to the larger political and social context in which it exists. Jurisprudence can be divided into categories both by the type of question scholars seek to answer and by the theories of jurisprudence, or schools of thought, regarding how those ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Actus Reus
In criminal law, ''actus reus'' (; : ''actus rei''), Latin for "guilty act", is one of the elements normally required to prove commission of a crime in common law jurisdictions, the other being ("guilty mind"). In the United States, it is sometimes called the '' external element'' or the ''objective element'' of a crime. Etymology The terms ''actus reus'' and ''mens rea'' developed in English Law are derived from a principle stated by Edward Coke, namely, ''actus non facit reum nisi mens sit rea'', which means: "an act does not make a person guilty unless (their) mind is also guilty"; hence, the general test of guilt is one that requires proof of fault, culpability or blameworthiness both in thought and action. Act In order for an ''actus reus'' to be committed there has to have been an act. Various common law jurisdictions define act differently but generally, an act is a "bodily movement whether voluntary or involuntary." In '' Robinson v. California'', , the U.S. Supreme C ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Trolley Problem
The trolley problem is a series of thought experiments in ethics, psychology, and artificial intelligence involving stylized ethical dilemmas of whether to sacrifice one person to save a larger number. The series usually begins with a Scenario (vehicular automation), scenario in which a runaway train, runaway tram, trolley or train is on course to collide with and kill a number of people (traditionally five) down the railway track, track, but a driver or bystander can intervene and divert the vehicle to kill just one person on a different track. Then other variations of the runaway vehicle, and analogous life-and-death dilemmas (medical, judicial, etc.) are posed, each containing the option to either do nothing, in which case several people will be killed, or intervene and sacrifice one initially "safe" person to save the others. Opinions on the ethics of each scenario turn out to be sensitive to details of the story that may seem immaterial to the abstract dilemma. The questi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ransom
Ransom refers to the practice of holding a prisoner or item to extort money or property to secure their release. It also refers to the sum of money paid by the other party to secure a captive's freedom. When ransom means "payment", the word comes via Old French ''rançon'' from Latin ''redemptio'', 'buying back'; compare " redemption". Ransom cases Julius Caesar was captured by pirates near the island of Pharmacusa, and held until someone paid 50 talents to free him. In Europe during the Middle Ages, ransom became an important custom of chivalric warfare. An important knight, especially nobility or royalty, was worth a significant sum of money if captured, but nothing if he was killed. For this reason, the practice of ransom contributed to the development of heraldry Heraldry is a discipline relating to the design, display and study of armorial bearings (known as armory), as well as related disciplines, such as vexillology, together with the study of ceremony, Imper ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tiger Kidnapping
A tiger kidnapping or tiger robbery involves two separate crimes. The first crime usually involves an abduction of a valuable person or thing. Instead of demanding money, the captors demand that a second crime be committed on their behalf. The second crime could be anything from robbery to a murder to the planting of a bomb. A person or item held hostage is kept by the captors until their demands are met. The goal of the captors is to have their risky/dirty work performed by another person. The victims of a crime like this are less likely to report to authorities since they just committed a crime themselves. Origins The practice began as a twist on a tactic used by the Irish Republican Army, which kidnapped people in order to coerce others into placing car bombs. The term originated from the similar way that criminals observe and "stalk their prey before pouncing". The first recorded crime that can be described as a tiger kidnapping occurred in 1972, but the term was coined ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hostage
A hostage is a person seized by an abductor in order to compel another party, one which places a high value on the liberty, well-being and safety of the person seized—such as a relative, employer, law enforcement, or government—to act, or refrain from acting, in a certain way, often under threat of serious physical harm or death to the hostage(s) after expiration of an ultimatum. The ''Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition'' defines a hostage as "a person who is handed over by one of two belligerent parties to the other or seized as security for the carrying out of an agreement, or as a preventive measure against certain acts of war." A party who seizes one or more hostages is known as a hostage-taker; if the hostages are present voluntarily, then the receiver is known as a host. In civil society, along with kidnapping for ransom and human trafficking (often willing to ransom its captives when lucrative or to trade on influence), hostage taking is a criminal activit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Public Policy
Public policy is an institutionalized proposal or a Group decision-making, decided set of elements like laws, regulations, guidelines, and actions to Problem solving, solve or address relevant and problematic social issues, guided by a conception and often implemented by programs. These policies govern and include various aspects of life such as education, health care, employment, finance, economics, transportation, and all over elements of society. The implementation of public policy is known as public administration. Public policy can be considered the sum of a government's direct and indirect activities and has been conceptualized in a variety of ways. They are created and/or enacted on behalf of the public, typically by a government. Sometimes they are made by Non-state actors or are made in Co-production (public services), co-production with communities or citizens, which can include potential experts, scientists, engineers and stakeholders or scientific data, or sometimes u ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Exculpation
In American jurisprudence, an excuse is a defense to criminal charges that is a distinct from an exculpation. Justification and excuse are different defenses in a criminal case (See Justification and excuse).Criminal Law Cases and Materials, 7th ed. 2012; John Kaplan, Robert Weisberg, Guyora Binder Exculpation is a related concept which reduces or extinguishes a person's culpability, such as their liability to pay compensation to the victim of a tort in the civil law. The excuse provides a mitigating factor for a group of persons sharing a common characteristic. Justification, as in justifiable homicide, vindicates or shows the justice. Thus, society approves of the purpose or motives underpinning some actions or the consequences flowing from them (see Robinson), and distinguishes those where the behavior cannot be approved but some excuse may be found in the characteristics of the defendant, e.g. that the accused was a serving police officer or suffering from a mental illnes ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jury Nullification
Jury nullification, also known as jury equity or as a perverse verdict, is a decision by the jury in a trial, criminal trial resulting in a verdict of Acquittal, not guilty even though they think a defendant has broken the law. The jury's reasons may include the belief that the law itself is unjust, that the prosecutor has misapplied the law in the defendant's case, that the punishment for breaking the law is too harsh, or general frustrations with the criminal justice system. It has been commonly used to oppose what jurors perceive as Rule according to higher law, unjust laws, such as those that once penalized runaway slaves under the Fugitive slave laws in the United States, Fugitive Slave Act, prohibited alcohol during Prohibition in the United States, Prohibition, or criminalized Vietnam War draft, draft evasion during the Vietnam War. Some juries have also refused to convict due to their own prejudices in favor of the defendant. Such verdicts are possible because a jury has ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sentence (law)
In criminal law, a sentence is the punishment for a crime ordered by a trial court after conviction in a criminal procedure, normally at the conclusion of a trial. A sentence may consist of imprisonment, a fine, or other sanctions. Sentences for multiple crimes may be a concurrent sentence, where sentences of imprisonment are all served together at the same time, or a consecutive sentence, in which the period of imprisonment is the sum of all sentences served one after the other. Additional sentences include intermediate, which allows an inmate to be free for about 8 hours a day for work purposes; determinate, which is fixed on a number of days, months, or years; and indeterminate or bifurcated, which mandates the minimum period be served in an institutional setting such as a prison followed by street time period of parole, supervised release or probation until the total sentence is completed. If a sentence is reduced to a less harsh punishment, then the sentence is sai ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Malum Prohibitum
''Malum prohibitum'' (plural ''mala prohibita'', literal translation: "wrong s or becauseprohibited") is a Latin phrase used in law to refer to conduct that constitutes an unlawful act only by virtue of statute, as opposed to conduct that is evil in and of itself, or '' malum in se''. Conduct that is so clearly violative of society's standards for allowable conduct that it is illegal under English common law is usually regarded as ''malum in se''. An offense that is ''malum prohibitum'' may not appear on the face to directly violate moral standards. The distinction between these two cases is discussed in ''State of Washington v. Thaddius X. Anderson'': Examples of offenses that are generally regarded as ''mala prohibita'' include disorderly conduct, gambling, possession of a controlled substance, prostitution, public intoxication, resisting arrest, speeding, and vagrancy. See also * Public-order crime In criminology, public-order crime is defined by Siegel (2004) a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Malum In Se
(plural ) is a Latin phrase meaning or . The phrase is used to refer to conduct assessed as sinful, contradictory to natural law or inherently wrong by nature, independent of regulations governing the conduct. It is distinguished from , which refers to acts that are wrong only because they are prohibited by law. For example, most human beings believe that murder, rape, and theft are wrong, regardless of whether a law governs such conduct or where the conduct occurs, and is thus recognizably . In contrast, crimes are criminal not because they are inherently bad, but because the act is prohibited by the law of the state. For example, most United States jurisdictions require drivers to drive on the right side of the road. This is not because driving on the left side of a road is considered immoral, but because consistent rules promote safety and order on the roads. The question between inherently wrong versus prohibited most likely originated in Plato's Socratic dialogue, Eu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
