Fees and charges required by law to be paid to the courts or their officers, the amount of which is specified by court rule or statute. A monetary allowance, granted by the court to a prevailing party and recoverable from the unsuccessful party, for expenses incurred in instituting or defending an action or a separate proceeding within an action. A bill of costs is a certified, itemized statement …
An attorney or lawyer. The rendition of advice and guidance concerning a legal matter, contemplated form of argument, claim, or action. The terms counsel and advise are frequently employed as synonyms for the term aid and abet to describe a person who, while not actually performing a criminal act, induced its performance or contributed to it. The term junior counsel refers to the younger member of…
A claim by a defendant opposing the claim of the plaintiff and seeking some relief from the plaintiff for the defendant. …
A comprehensive term for the vulnerability of a foreign government to retaliatory suits against it arising out of a lawsuit that it commences against a party. A foreign nation that is a plaintiff in an action brought before a court of another nation is not barred in appropriate cases from invoking the act of state doctrine to preclude a counterclaim against it. This doctrine provides that, as a ge…
The process of fraudulently manufacturing, altering, or distributing a product that is of lesser value than the genuine product. Counterfeiting is a criminal offense when it involves an intent to defraud in passing off the counterfeit item. The law contains exemptions for collector's items and items that are so obviously dissimilar from the original that a reasonable person would not consid…
A clearly recognizable pattern of previous conduct between parties to a business transaction. The course of dealing between parties to an action is examined by a court in ascertaining what the parties intended when they entered into a contract. The supposition is that the parties drew up the contract in view of the customary manner in which business had been transacted prior to the signing of the …
Workers' compensation laws require the payment of compensation from the employer to the employee in conformity with a schedule for a particular category of injury, provided that the employee is injured during the course of employment. The course of employment encompasses the actual period of employment and the period during which the employee, while on the employer's premises, prepar…
Evidence of the conduct of parties concerning the execution of obligations under a contract requiring more than one performance that is used for the purpose of interpreting the contract's provisions. Course of performance refers to the systematic and uniform conduct in which parties engage after they enter into a contract. The intent of the parties in regard to the meaning of the agreement …
A judicial tribunal established to administer justice. An entity in the government to which the administration of justice is delegated. In a broader sense, the term may also refer to a legislative assembly; a deliberative body, such as the General Court of Massachusetts, which is its legislature. The words court, judge, or judges, when used in laws, are often synonymous. A kangaroo court is a mock…
An officer of the judicial system who performs administrative and clerical duties essential to the proper operation of the business of a court, such as tracking trial dates, keeping records, entering judgments, and issuing process. A go-between for judges, attorneys, and clients, the court administrator essentially runs the court's business. The behind-the-scenes work of this position range…
An intermediate federal judicial tribunal of review that is found in thirteen judicial districts, called circuits, in the United States. A state judicial tribunal that reviews a decision rendered by an inferior tribunal to determine whether it made errors that warrant the reversal of its judgment. In some states, the court of appeals is an intermediate appellate tribunal that reviews the decisions…
A state judicial tribunal established as the forum in which to bring certain types of lawsuits against the state or its political subdivisions, such as a county. The former designation given to a federal tribunal created in 1855 by Congress with original jurisdiction—initial authority—to decide an action brought against the United States that is based upon the Constitution, federal l…
Three levels of courts exist in the military justice system: military trial courts, courts of military review, and the U.S. Court of Military Appeals. Courts-martial are handled by the lowest courts, which are presided over by military trial judges who are quite similar to U.S. district court judges. These judges are commissioned officers selected by judge advocates according to rules established …
A statement that is prepared by a judge or court announcing the decision after a case is tried; includes a summary of the facts, a recitation of the applicable law and how it relates to the facts, the rationale supporting the decision, and a judgment; and is usually presented in writing, though occasionally an oral opinion is rendered. Court opinions are the pronouncements of judges on the legal c…
The Courtroom Television Network (Court TV) is a cable network devoted to explaining law to the layperson. Founded in 1991, this novel venture in television programming was a long shot: few thought a twenty-four-hour-a-day, seven-day-a-week diet of live trials and legal analysis would succeed. Within two years, though, the network ranked fourth in the Nielsen Company's daytime cable ratings…
An agreement, contract, or written promise between two individuals that frequently constitutes a pledge to do or refrain from doing something. The individual making the promise or agreement is known as the covenantor, and the individual to whom such promise is made is called the covenantee. Covenants are really a type of contractual arrangement that, if validly reached, is enforceable by a court. …
When the common-law system was first developing in England after the Norman Conquest of 1066, the king's courts were little concerned with the personal disputes of private parties. When the royal courts began assuming more authority the procedure for asserting a legal claim became more technical. A dispute would not be heard unless the plaintiff could make out a claim in an established form…
These concerns led Louisiana, in 1997, to enact the first covenant marriage law in the United States (L.S.A.-R.S. 9:272 et seq. [1997]). The law created two forms of marriage in the state: the traditional marriage contract, with minimal formalities of formation and dissolution, and a covenant marriage, which imposes heightened requirements for entering and leaving a marriage. Supporters of the cov…
Since 1971, the president had been surreptitiously recording conversations in the White House, and Cox believed that the tapes contained key evidence. Cox put pressure on Nixon to release the recordings. Nixon refused, claiming that he had a constitutional right to keep presidential documents confidential. Cox warned that the refusal would precipitate a constitutional crisis. The Senate Select Com…
The Reconstruction era after the Civil War was a time of chaos, reorganization, and corruption that affected not only lesser state officials but also federal government agents. The Crédit Mobilier affair, which had its early beginnings in 1864 but was not publicly investigated until 1873, is an example of the corrupt practices that characterized the period. Cartoonist Joseph Keppler off…
In 1791, Cranch moved to Washington, D.C., to become a legal agent for a real estate firm that made large and speculative investments in the city based on the municipality's recent selection to be the nation's capital. The venture later proved to be financially disastrous, and Cranch was financially ruined as a result of its collapse. In 1800, John Adams, by then president, came to C…
A sum in taxation that is subtracted from the computed tax, as opposed to a deduction that is ordinarily subtracted from gross income to determine adjusted gross income or taxable income. A claim for a particular sum of money. The ability of an individual or a company to borrow money or procure goods on time, as a result of a positive opinion by the particular lender concerning such borrower…
An attachment creditor is an individual who has obtained an order of attachment from a court to command a sheriff to seize the property of a debtor who has defaulted in the repayment of an outstanding obligation so that the property may be used to satisfy the creditor's claim. A general creditor or creditor at large is an individual who has neither a lien nor a security interest in the prop…
An equitable proceeding initiated by a person who has obtained—and is entitled to enforce—a money judgment against a debtor to collect the payment of a debt that cannot be reached through normal legal procedures. …
Although the number of federal crimes continued to grow throughout the twentieth century, the perception persisted that crime was rampant throughout the United States, particularly during the turbulent times of the 1960s. Faced with the high incidence of crime throughout the country, Congress enacted the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968, Pub. L. No. 90-351, 82 Stat. 197 (codified…
Acts or omissions that are in violation of law. Each state in the United States, as well as the federal government, maintains a body of criminal laws. As populations have increased and personal interactions and business transactions have grown more complicated, criminal laws have likewise grown in number and complexity. Most jurisdictions codify criminal statutes in a separate section in their law…
A body of rules and statutes that defines conduct prohibited by the government because it threatens and harms public safety and welfare and that establishes punishment to be imposed for the commission of such acts. Crimes are usually categorized as felonies or misdemeanors based on their nature and the maximum punishment that can be imposed. A felony involves serious misconduct that is punishable …
The scientific study of the causation, correction, and prevention of crime. …
An intellectual movement whose members argue that law is neither neutral nor value free but is in fact inseparable from politics. Several subcategories exist within the CLS movement: feminist legal criticism, which examines the role of gender in the law; critical race theory (CRT), which is concerned with the role of race in the law; postmodernism, a critique of the law influenced by developments …
Crittenden was born September 10, 1787, near Versailles, Woodford County, Kentucky. His father was a Revolutionary War soldier and an early Kentucky settler. Crittenden was schooled near his home in Jessamine County, Kentucky. He showed a great aptitude for learning and was encouraged to pursue a career in the law. He attended William and Mary College, and graduated in 1807. His first law practice…
George W. Crockett. AP/WIDE WORLD PHOTOS Crockett served as a judge of the Detroit Recorder's (Criminal) Court from 1966 to 1978. His years on the bench included a term as presiding judge in 1974. He retired from the recorder's court in 1978, but soon returned to public service. In 1980, Representative Charles C. Diggs Jr. (D-Mich.), one of the few people who had befrien…
Commodities produced from the earth which are planted, raised, and gathered within the course of a single season. Fructus naturales are crops that are produced by the powers of nature alone, without any harvesting methods. They include fruit trees, berries growing on bushes, and hay growing spontaneously from perennial roots. They are considered real property when they are not severed from the lan…