Free Legal Encyclopedia: Cross‐contamination to Deed of covenant
Cruel and Unusual Punishment - Is Death By Electrocution Cruel And Unusual Under Evolving Standards?, Further Readings
However, a defendant need not suffer actual physical injury or pain before a punishment will be declared cruel and unusual. In Trop v. Dulles, 356 U.S. 86, 78 S. Ct. 590, 2 L. Ed. 2d 630 (1958), the U.S. Supreme Court held that the use of denationalization (the deprivation of citizenship) as a punishment is barred by the Eighth Amendment. The Court reasoned that when someone is denationalized, &#x…
Cruelty
The deliberate and malicious infliction of mental or physical pain upon persons or animals. As applied to people, cruelty encompasses abusive, outrageous, and inhumane treatment that results in the wanton and unnecessary infliction of suffering upon the body or mind. Cruelty to animals involves the infliction of physical pain or death upon an animal, when unnecessary for disciplinary, instructiona…
Cuban Missile Crisis - Further Readings
The crisis grew out of political changes in Cuba. In the 1950s, Fidel Castro, a young lawyer, led a guerrilla movement against Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista. Batista lost the confidence of the Cuban people and on January 1, 1959, fled the country. Castro became premier of the new government. U.S. Ambassador Adlai Stevenson (seated, far right) addresses members of the U.N. Security Council o…
Homer Stille Cummings
Cummings was born in Chicago, Illinois, on April 30, 1870. He attended Yale University where he received his undergraduate degree in 1891 and two years later, his law degree. Cummings was admitted to the Connecticut bar in 1893 and began a private practice in Stamford. He rose in prominence as a litigator, becoming a member of the New York bar. He also was admitted to practice before a number of f…
Curtesy
An estate to which a man is entitled by common-law right on the death of his wife, in all the lands that his wife owned at any time during their marriage, provided a child is born of the marriage who could inherit the land. Pursuant to common law, upon the birth of a child capable of inheriting the land, a husband acquires a life estate, or property interest, the duration of which is limited to th…
Benjamin Robbins Curtis
During his brief tenure on the U.S. Supreme Court, Curtis made a lasting impact with his dissent in Dred Scott and his majority opinion in Cooley v. Board of Wardens, 53 U.S. 299, 13 L. Ed. 996 (1851). Curtis was one of two dissenters in Dred Scott, which the majority opinion viewed as the final word on the legal merits of slavery and the issue of citizenship for African Americans. Chief Justice R…
Caleb Cushing - Further Readings
Cushing was born January 17, 1800, in Salisbury, Massachusetts, descending from a family with roots in colonial Massachusetts. A gifted student, he tutored classmates in mathematics and philosophy, and he graduated from Harvard at the age of seventeen. He studied law in Boston and was admitted to the Massachusetts bar in 1821. The same year, he moved to Newburyport, Massachusetts, and established …
Luther Stearns Cushing
Luther Stearns Cushing achieved prominence as a legal educator, author, and jurist. He was born June 22, 1803, in Lunenberg, Massachusetts. Cushing graduated from Harvard University with a bachelor of laws degree in 1826. From 1826 to 1832, Cushing was an editor for The American Jurist and Law Magazine. For the next twelve years, he served in the state government system as clerk of the Massac…
William Cushing
William Cushing was born March 1, 1732. He graduated from Harvard College in 1751, and received an honorary master of arts degree from Yale University in 1753 and an honorary doctor of laws degree from Harvard University in 1785. In 1779, Cushing was a member of the first Massachusetts Constitutional Convention. In 1788, he acted as vice president at the Massachusetts Convention, a convention that…
Custodial Interrogation - The Future Of Miranda, Further Readings
Questioning initiated by law enforcement officers after a person is taken into custody or otherwise deprived of his or her freedom in any significant way, thus requiring that the person be advised of his or her applicable constitutional rights. Since Miranda was decided, state and federal courts have struggled with a number of issues with regard to its application, including: when a suspect is dee…
Custody
The care, possession, and control of a thing or person. The retention, inspection, guarding, maintenance, or security of a thing within the immediate care and control of the person to whom it is committed. The detention of a person by lawful authority or process. …
Cy Pres
Abbreviated form of cy pres comme possible, French for "as near as possible." The name of a rule employed in the construction of such instruments as trusts and wills, by which the intention of the person who executes the instrument is effectuated as nearly as possible when circumstances make it impossible or illegal to give literal effect to the document. Cy pres is applied in cases …
Alexander James Dallas
Alexander James Dallas achieved prominence as a jurist, statesman, and author. Dallas was born June 21, 1759, in Jamaica, British West Indies. He relocated to the United States, becoming a citizen in 1783. In 1785, Dallas was admitted to the Pennsylvania bar and began his judicial career as counselor of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. Six years later he acted as secretary of the Commonwealth of Pe…
George Mifflin Dallas
George M. Dallas. Dallas returned to Philadelphia and served as deputy attorney general before becoming mayor in 1829 for a three-year period. He also acted as U.S. district attorney, and in 1831, he entered the federal government. Dallas filled a vacancy in the U.S. Senate and represented Pennsylvania until 1833; in that same year, he also performed the duties of attorney general of Pennsy…
Damages - Compensatory Damages, Nominal Damages, Punitive Damages, Liquidated Damages, Appellate Review Of Damages, Further Readings - Treble Damages
Monetary compensation that is awarded by a court in a civil action to an individual who has been injured through the wrongful conduct of another party. Damages attempt to measure in financial terms the extent of harm a plaintiff has suffered because of a defendant's actions. Damages are distinguishable from costs, which are the expenses incurred as a result of bringing a lawsuit and which t…
Richard Henry Dana
Richard Henry Dana achieved prominence as a lawyer and author, and for his knowledge of the sea. Dana was born August 1, 1815, in Cambridge, Massachusetts. A student at Harvard University, he interrupted his studies in 1834 and spent two years as a sailor. In 1836, he returned to Harvard, graduating in 1837. He subsequently received an honorary doctor of laws degree in 1866. acting as attorney for…
Peter Vivian Daniel
The Court heard arguments on Dred Scott in 1855 and 1856. A key issue was whether African Americans could be citizens of the United States, even if they were not slaves. Daniel was a loyal southerner, holding in his concurring opinion that African Americans who had been freed since the enactment of the Constitution could never be citizens. The Framers had not contemplated the prospect of gran…
Clarence Seward Darrow - Further Readings
Darrow was the master of the courtroom drama. One striking and effective aspect of his legal style was his physical appearance in the courtroom. He wore rumpled suits—often bared to shirtsleeves and suspenders—and let his tousled hair hang into his face. He had a halting walk and slouching stance, and his habits of smoking long cigars slowly during the proceedings and even reading an…
Daubert Test - Further Readings
Then, in Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc., the U.S. Supreme Court changed the standard for admissibility of expert testimony. Under Daubert, a trial judge has a duty to scrutinize evidence more rigorously to determine whether it meets the requirements of Federal Rule of Evidence 702. This rule states, "If scientific, technical, or other specialized knowledge will assist the trie…
Harry Micajah Daugherty
In 1902, Daugherty established the law firm of Daugherty, Todd & Rarey; he remained a senior member of the firm until his appointment as U.S. attorney general in 1921. Daugherty had become acquainted with rising Republican star Harry M. Daugherty. LIBRARY OF CONGRESS Warren G. Harding, who served as lieutenant governor of Ohio from 1904 to 1905. Daugherty became involved in Harding&…
Angela Yvonne Davis - Further Readings
Angela Yvonne Davis, political activist, author, professor, and Communist party member, was an international symbol of the black liberation movement of the 1960s and 1970s. Davis was born in Birmingham, Alabama, on January 26, 1944, the eldest of four children. Her family was relatively well-off among the blacks in the city. Her father and mother were teachers in the Birmingham school system, and …
David Davis
Davis was born in Sassafras Neck, Maryland, on March 9, 1815. He attended Kenyon College at the age of thirteen. Following graduation he read the law in a Massachusetts law firm, before attending New Haven Law School for less than a year. In 1835 he moved to Illinois and was admitted to the bar, and opened a law firm in Pekin. In 1836 he purchased a law practice in Bloomington, Illinois, where he …
John Chandler Bancroft Davis
John Chandler Bancroft Davis enjoyed a long and prolific career as a diplomat, jurist, and legal historian. The son of John Davis, a Massachusetts governor and U.S. senator, Davis was born December 29, 1822, in Worcester, Massachusetts. He entered Harvard College in 1840, but was suspended (unjustly, by some accounts) during his senior year. He then studied law and was admitted to the Massachusett…
John William Davis
Davis entered politics in 1899 by participating in the West Virginia House of Delegates. He was a member of the Democratic National Conventions from 1904 to 1932. Davis died March 24, 1955, in Charleston, South Carolina. …
William Rufus Day
Day was born April 17, 1849, in Ravenna, Ohio. He graduated from the University of Michigan in 1870 and attended its law school for one year. He was admitted to the Ohio bar in 1872 and entered practice in Canton, Ohio. Despite this hostility to the Child Labor Act, Day upheld the federal government's power to regulate interstate commerce in other cases that involved the shipment of im…
Days of Grace
An extension of the time originally scheduled for the performance of an act, such as payment for a debt, granted merely as a gratuitous favor by the person to whom the performance is owed. In old English practice, days of grace allowed a person an extra three days beyond the date specified in a writ summoning him or her before a court in which to make an appearance without being subject to punishm…
De Facto
[Latin, In fact.] In fact, in deed, actually. A de facto corporation is one that has been given legal status despite the fact that it has not complied with all the statutory formalities required for corporate existence. Only the state may challenge the validity of the existence of a de facto corporation. …
De Jure
De jure is commonly paired with de facto, which means "in fact." In the course of ordinary events, the term de jure is superfluous. For example, in everyday discourse, when one speaks of a corporation or a government, the understood meaning is a de jure corporation or a de jure government. A de jure government is the legal, legitimate government of a state and is so recognized by oth…
Dead Man's Statutes
Dead man's statutes are designed to protect the estate of a deceased person from fraudulent claims made by a person who had engaged in transactions with the decedent. These laws do not permit the claimant to testify as to what terms a decedent verbally accepted, since the decedent is unable to testify and give his or her version of the transaction. Such statutes are derived from common-law …
Deadly Force - Further Readings
An amount of force that is likely to cause either serious bodily injury or death to another person. In police jargon, deadly force is also referred to as shoot to kill. The Supreme Court has ruled that, depending on the circumstances, if an offender resists arrest, police officers may use as much force as is reasonably required to overcome the resistance. Whether the force is reasonable is determi…
Death and Dying - Defining Death In The Law, Legal Death And Missing Persons, Death Certificates, The Nature Of Dying
Death is the end of life. Dying is the process of approaching death, including the choices and actions involved in that process. …
Debenture
A sample debenture. [Latin, Are due.] A promissory note or bond offered by a corporation to a creditor in exchange for a loan, the repayment of which is backed only by the general creditworthiness of the corporation and not by a mortgage or a lien on any specific property. A subordinate debenture is one that will be repaid only after other corporate debts have been satisfied. A convert…
Eugene Debs - Further Readings
Labor leader, presidential candidate, author, and radical, social, and political agitator, Eugene Debs employed a combination of self-determination, grit, defiance, and risk-taking to play a sometimes pivotal role in American law from the late 1890s through the early twentieth century. The son of Alsatian immigrants, Eugene Victor Debs was born in Terre Haute, Indiana, on November 5, 1855. As a yo…
Decalogue Society of Lawyers
Founded in 1934, the Decalogue Society of Lawyers is an association of attorneys of the Jewish faith who seek to advance and improve the law, the legal profession, and the administration of justice; to foster friendly relations among its members, and between its members and other members of the bar, the courts, and the public; to cooperate as lawyers and citizens in worthy movements for the public…
Declaration
On December 8, 1941, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signs the Congressional Declaration of War on Japan. NATIONAL ARCHIVES AND RECORDS ADMINISTRATION A declaration against interest is another type of statement received into evidence even though it is being repeated by someone who heard it out of court. It is any comment that admits something harmful to the rights of the person who mad…
Declaration of Independence - Further Readings
Since its creation in 1776, the Declaration of Independence has been considered the single most important expression of the ideals of U.S. democracy. As a statement of the fundamental principles of the United States, the Declaration is an enduring reminder of the country's commitment to popular government and equal rights for all. The Declaration of Independence is a product of the early da…
Declaratory Judgment
Individuals may seek a declaratory judgment after a legal controversy has arisen but before any damages have occurred or any laws have been violated. A declaratory judgment differs from other judicial rulings in that it does not require that any action be taken. Instead, the judge, after analyzing the controversy, simply issues an opinion declaring the rights of each of the parties involved. A dec…
Dedication
The owner of the land does not retain any rights that are inconsistent with the complete exercise and enjoyment of the public uses to which the property has been committed. A dedication is express where the gift is formally declared, but it can also be implied by operation of law from the owner's actions and the facts and circumstances of the case. An express common-law dedication is one in…
Deed - Transfer Of Land, Delivery, Acceptance, Recording, Types Of Deeds, Validity - Execution, Defects
A written instrument, which has been signed and delivered, by which one individual, the grantor, conveys title to real property to another individual, the grantee; a conveyance of land, tenements, or hereditaments, from one individual to another. In order for a deed to be properly executed, certain acts must be performed to create a valid conveyance. Ordinarily, an essential element of execution i…
Deed of Trust
A document that embodies the agreement between a lender and a borrower to transfer an interest in the borrower's land to a neutral third party, a trustee, to secure the payment of a debt by the borrower. A deed of trust, also called a trust deed or a Potomac Mortgage, is used in some states in place of a mortgage, a transfer of interest in land by a mortgagor-borrower to a mortgagee-lender …