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International Court of Justice - Further Readings

The function of the ICJ is to resolve disputes between sovereign states. Disputes may be placed before the court by parties upon conditions prescribed by the U.N. Security Council. No state, however, may be subject to the jurisdiction of the court without the state's consent. Consent may be given by express agreement at the time the dispute is presented to the court, by prior agreement to a…

5 minute read

International Law - Sources Of International Law, Un Charter And United Nations, Further Readings, Cross-references

The body of law that governs the legal relations between or among states or nations. To qualify as a subject under the traditional definition of international law, a state had to be sovereign: It needed a territory, a population, a government, and the ability to engage in diplomatic or foreign relations. States within the United States, provinces, and cantons were not considered subjects of intern…

less than 1 minute read

International Monetary Fund

Membership is open to countries willing to abide by terms established by the board of governors, which is composed of a representative from each member nation. General terms include obligations to avoid manipulating exchange rates, abstain from discriminatory currency practices, and refrain from imposing restrictions on the making of payments and currency transfers necessary to foreign trade. The …

4 minute read

Internet - Should The Internet Be Policed?, Further Readings

In the early 1970s, other countries began to join ARPANET, and within a decade it was widely accessible to researchers, administrators, and students throughout the world. The National Science Foundation (NSF) assumed responsibility for linking these users of ARPANET, which was dismantled in 1990. The NSF Network (NSFNET) now serves as the technical backbone for all Internet communications in the U…

12 minute read

Internet Fraud - Further Readings

As increasing numbers of businesses and consumers rely on the Internet and other forms of electronic communication to conduct transactions; illegal activity using the very same media is similarly on the rise. Fraudulent schemes conducted via the Internet are generally difficult to trace and prosecute, and they cost individuals and businesses millions of dollars each year. Securities fraud, also ca…

10 minute read

Interpleader

An equitable proceeding brought by a third person to have a court determine the ownership rights of rival claimants to the same money or property that is held by that third person. Interpleader is a form of equitable relief. Equitable remedies are ways for courts to enforce rights other than by issuing a judgment for money damages. Interpleader is employed when two or more parties seek ownership o…

2 minute read

Interpol

Interpol was established in 1923, with the General Secretariat—the international headquarters—located in Lyons, France. Delegates from member countries meet once a year to discuss police problems and admit new members. Each member nation maintains and staffs its own national central bureau. In the United States, the bureau is located in Washington, D.C. The U.S. bureau is under the d…

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Interpretation

The art or process of determining the intended meaning of a written document, such as a constitution, statute, contract, deed, or will. When the intended meaning of the words in a document is obscure and conjecture is needed to determine the sense in which they have been used, mixed interpretation occurs. In such a case, the words express an individual's intent only when they are correctly …

2 minute read

Interrogatories

Written questions submitted to a party from his or her adversary to ascertain answers that are prepared in writing and signed under oath and that have relevance to the issues in a lawsuit. Sample interrogatories by a plaintiff, directed to a corporation …

1 minute read

Interstate Commerce Act

The law required that railroad rates be "reasonable and just," but it did not empower the federal government to fix specific rates. It prohibited trusts, rebates, and discriminatory fares. It also required carriers to publish their fares, and allowed them to change fares only after giving the public ten days' notice. …

3 minute read

Interstate Commerce Commission - Further Readings

The first independent regulatory agency created by the federal government, the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) regulated interstate surface transportation between 1887 and 1995. Over its 108-year history, the agency regulated and certified trains, trucks, buses, water carriers, freight forwarders, pipelines, and many other elements of interstate transportation. Congress established the ICC to…

3 minute read

Interstate Compact - Further Readings

A voluntary arrangement between two or more states that is designed to solve their common problems and that becomes part of the laws of each state. Interstate compacts in the United States were first used by the American colonies to settle boundary disputes. After the American Revolution, states continued to use interstate compacts to meet their various needs. Although these compacts were necessar…

5 minute read

Intervening Cause

A separate act or omission that breaks the direct connection between the defendant's actions and an injury or loss to another person, and may relieve the defendant of liability for the injury or loss. Civil and criminal defendants alike may invoke the intervening cause doctrine to escape liability for their actions. A defendant is held liable for an injury or loss to another person if the d…

4 minute read

Intervention

A procedure used in a lawsuit by which the court allows a third person who was not originally a party to the suit to become a party, by joining with either the plaintiff or the defendant. Intervention of right arises when the intervenor, the person who seeks to become a party to an existing lawsuit, can satisfactorily show that his or her interest is not adequately represented by the present parti…

1 minute read

Intoxication

A state in which a person's normal capacity to act or reason is inhibited by alcohol or drugs. Generally, an intoxicated person is incapable of acting as an ordinary prudent and cautious person would act under similar conditions. In recognition of this factor, the law may allow intoxication to be used as a defense to certain crimes. In many jurisdictions, intoxication is a defense to specif…

1 minute read

Involuntary Confession

An admission, especially by an individual who has been accused of a crime, that is not freely offered but rather is precipitated by a threat, fear, torture, or a promise. Miranda has been criticized by those who see it as an unfair restriction on law enforcement. Nevertheless, empirical studies conducted in the 1970s and 1980s have concluded that the Miranda warnings have not appreciably reduced t…

3 minute read

Involuntary Manslaughter

The act of unlawfully killing another human being unintentionally. Most unintentional killings are not murder but involuntary manslaughter. The absence of the element of intent is the key distinguishing factor between voluntary and involuntary manslaughter. In most states involuntary manslaughter results from an improper use of reasonable care or skill while performing a legal act, or while commit…

2 minute read

Involuntary Servitude

The term involuntary servitude is used in reference to any type of slavery, peonage, or compulsory labor for the satisfaction of debts. Two essential elements of involuntary servitude are involuntariness, which is compulsion to act against one's will, and servitude, which is some form of labor for another. Imprisonment without forced labor is not involuntary servitude, nor is unpleasant lab…

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Iran-Contra Affair

The enterprise seemed designed to circumvent the will of Congress. In the early 1980s, after bitter debate, Congress had passed legislation barring the use of federal monies to overthrow the Nicaraguan government. Through a series of amendments to appropriations bills enacted between 1982 and 1986, known as the Boland amendments, this legislation blocked the Reagan administration's wish to …

14 minute read

James Iredell

Iredell was born October 5, 1751, in Lewes, England. At age seventeen he began working in his family's mercantile business in North Carolina and also undertook the study of law. He was licensed to practice law in 1771. In the next few years, he became active in the Revolutionary cause, arguing that the colonies not separate from England and advocating in his writings that the conflict be re…

2 minute read

Patricia Ireland - Further Readings

Patricia Ireland. AP/WIDE WORLD PHOTOS beginning to feel a shift in its ranks and the United States was experiencing a renewed interest in the feminist movement. Ireland was born October 19, 1945, in Oak Park, Illinois. She grew up on a farm in Valparaiso, Indiana, where her family raised honeybees. She is the younger of two daughters of James Ireland and Joan Filipek (older sister Kathy w…

5 minute read

Irresistible Impulse - Further Readings

Second, a defendant may argue that because of mental disease or defect, she or he was unable to act in conformance with the law. This is volitional insanity, and it is known as the irresistible impulse defense. Under this defense, a defendant may be found not guilty by reason of insanity even though she or he was capable of distinguishing right from wrong at the time of the offense. The success of…

3 minute read

Island

A land area surrounded by water and remaining above sea level during high tide. Land areas exposed only during low tide are called low-tide elevations or drying rocks, reefs, or shoals. The existence of islands has generated numerous disputes, centering primarily on the size of the territorial sea surrounding an island and the determination of what state has sovereignty over a particular island. T…

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Issue

In the law governing the transfer or distribution of property, a child, children, and all individuals who descend from a common ancestor or descendents of any degree. As applied to notes or bonds of a series, date of issue means the day fixed as the start of the period for which they run, with no reference to a specific date when the bonds or notes are to be sold and delivered. With regard to bond…

1 minute read

J.S.D.

An abbreviation for Doctor of Juridical Science, a degree awarded to highly qualified individuals who have successfully completed a prescribed course of advanced study in law after having earned J.D. and LL.M. degrees. The standards for admission to J.S.D. programs are stringent. Although specific academic requirements for acceptance into a J.S.D. program vary from one law school to another, ordin…

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Andrew Jackson

Andrew Jackson achieved prominence as a frontiersman, jurist, and military hero, and as seventh president of the United States. His two administrations, famous for ideologies labeled Jacksonian Democracy, encouraged participation in government by the people, particularly the middle class. Jackson was born March 15, 1767, in Waxhaw, South Carolina. In 1781, Jackson entered the military, fought in t…

5 minute read

Howell Edmunds Jackson

Jackson was born April 8, 1832, in Paris, Tennessee. He graduated from West Tennessee College in 1849, then studied for a time at the University of Virginia. He read the law with a Tennessee Supreme Court judge for a year, and Howell E. Jackson. U.S. SUPREME COURT obtained his law degree from Cumberland University in Lebanon, Tennessee, in 1856. Thereafter, he practiced law in Jackson and …

4 minute read

Jesse Louis Jackson Sr.

Jackson was born October 8, 1941, in Greenville, South Carolina. His mother, Helen Burns, was only 16 when Jackson was born. His father, Noah Louis Robinson, acknowledged Jackson as his son, but because he was married to another woman and had several other children, he was not involved in Jackson's life. When he was three, his mother married Charles Jackson. The family eventually moved out …

7 minute read

Robert Houghwout Jackson - Further Readings

Jackson's straightforward style as a lawyer and a justice stemmed from his rural upbringing. The first Jacksons immigrated to the United States from England in 1819. They settled in Spring Creek, Pennsylvania, where Jackson was born on February 13, 1892. His father, William Eldred Jackson, provided for the family through farming and lumbering. In September 1911 Jackson entered Albany Law Sc…

3 minute read

Jail - Further Readings

A building designated or regularly used for the confinement of individuals who are sentenced for minor crimes or who are unable to gain release on bail and are in custody awaiting trial. Jail is usually the first place a person is taken after being arrested by police officers. Most cities have at least one jail, and persons are taken directly there after they are arrested; in less populated areas,…

8 minute read

Jailhouse Lawyer

Prison inmates with some knowledge of law who give legal advice and assistance to their fellow inmates. The important role that jailhouse lawyers play in the criminal justice system has been recognized by the U.S. Supreme Court, which has held that jailhouse lawyers must be permitted to assist illiterate inmates in filing petitions for post-conviction relief unless the state provides some reasonab…

2 minute read

William James - Further Readings

James was born in New York City on January 11, 1842, to Henry James Sr. and Mary Walsh James. Comfortably supported by an inheritance, his parents stressed their children's abilities to make independent choices. James's formal schooling was irregular, and he studied frequently in England, France, Switzerland, and Germany. James pursued an enduring interest in the natural sciences, ea…

2 minute read

Leon Jaworski

Jaworski was born in Waco, Texas, on September 19, 1905, to an Austrian mother and a Polish father. He was christened Leonidas, after a king of ancient Sparta who courageously gave his life for his beliefs. Jaworski's father, an evangelical minister, instilled in him from an early age a deep and abiding Christian faith and sense of duty. By the time he was fourteen, he was the champion deba…

10 minute read

John Jay - Further Readings

John Jay was a politician, statesman, and the first chief justice of the Supreme Court. He was one Jay was born in New York City on December 12, 1745. Unlike most of the colonists in the New World, who were English, Jay traced his ancestry to the French Huguenots, His grandfather, August Jay, immigrated to New York in the late seventeenth century to escape the persecution of non-Catholics under Lo…

3 minute read

Thomas Jefferson - Further Readings

Thomas Jefferson served as an American Revolutionary and political theorist and as the third president of the United States. Jefferson, who was a talented architect, writer, and diplomat, played a profound role in shaping U.S. government and politics. After the Revolutionary War began, Jefferson and four others were asked to draft a declaration of independence. Jefferson actually wrote the Declara…

5 minute read

Jim Crow Laws - Further Readings

The term "Jim Crow" laws evidently originated from a minstrel show character developed during the mid-nineteenth century. A number of groups of white entertainers applied black cork to their faces and imitated Negro dancing and singing routines. Such acts became popular in several northern cities. One of the performers reportedly sang a song with the lyrics, "Weel about and tu…

6 minute read

John Doe or Jane Doe

A fictitious name used for centuries in the law when a specific person is not known by name. John Doe may be used for a specific person who is known but cannot be identified by name. The form Jane Doe is often used for anonymous females, and Richard Roe is often used when more than one unknown or fictitious person is named in a lawsuit. The tradition of fictitious names comes from the Romans, who …

1 minute read

Andrew Johnson - Further Readings

Johnson was born December 29, 1808, in Raleigh, North Carolina. Little is known of his early life. His ancestry is usually traced only to the family of his father, Jacob Johnson, who raised his family in Raleigh and served as the city's constable and sexton, was a porter to the state bank, and was a respected captain in the militia of North Carolina. He was viewed as a hero after saving two…

6 minute read

Frank Minis Johnson Jr.

Johnson was born October 30, 1918, in Delmar, a town in northern Alabama's Winston County. The county, in which Johnson spent his youth, was a Republican stronghold in an overwhelmingly Democratic state; in fact, it had attempted to remain neutral during the Civil War. Johnson's father, Frank Minis Johnson Sr. served as one of the few Republicans in the Alabama state legislature. Joh…

7 minute read

James Weldon Johnson

Johnson was born June 17, 1871, in Jacksonville, Florida. His parents, James Johnson and Helen Louise Dillette Johnson, encouraged his pursuit of education, and he graduated from Atlanta University in 1894. He then took a job as principal at the Stanton School in Jacksonville, where he established a high school program. He studied law with a white lawyer in his spare time, and in 1898 was admitted…

4 minute read

Lyndon Baines Johnson

Johnson was born August 27, 1908, near Stonewall, Texas. He was raised in Johnson City, Texas, which was named for his grandfather, who had served in the Texas Legislature. Johnson's father, Sam Ealy Johnson, also served in the Texas Legislature. Johnson graduated from Southwest Texas State Teachers College in 1930 with a teaching degree. He taught high school in Houston, until 1931, when h…

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Reverdy Johnson

Johnson's talents in constitutional law were demonstrated in the Dred Scott case. Dred Scott was an African–American slave from Missouri who had been transported to Minnesota, then a "free" (non-slaveholding) territory. Scott sued for his freedom, arguing that he was no longer a slave because he had resided in a free territory. Missouri law had established the principle…

3 minute read

Thomas Johnson

Thomas Johnson was the first governor of Maryland. He served in the Maryland House of Delegates in the early 1780s and was chief judge of the Maryland General Court from 1790 to 1791. Johnson was appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court in 1791, where he served a brief and uneventful term before resigning because of poor health. Johnson was born November 4, 1732, to Thomas Johnson and Dorcas Sedgwick J…

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William Johnson

Johnson was born December 27, 1771, in Charleston, South Carolina. He was the son of Sarah Nightingale Johnson and of William Johnson, a blacksmith, legislator, and well-known Revolutionary patriot. During the Revolutionary War, when the British captured Charleston, Johnson's father was sent to detention in Florida, and the family was exiled from its home. The Johnsons returned to South Car…

3 minute read

Joint Estate - Joint Tenancy, Tenancy By The Entirety - Tenancy in Common

Property owned by two or more people at the same time, under the same title, with the same interest, and with the same right of possession. Tenancy in common provides ownership of an undivided interest of the whole but not of the whole itself. It bestows no right of survivorship, and the interest of the tenant in common is freely alienable and will pass to the heirs of the tenant upon the tenant&#…

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Joint Operating Agreement - Further Readings

Congress responded to Citizens Publishing by passing the Newspaper Preservation Act (NPA) (15 U.S.C.A. § 1802 et seq.) in 1970. The NPA lets newspapers form a JOA if they pass a less strict test. Under the NPA the attorney general may grant limited exemption from antitrust laws by approving a JOA. Two or more gas and oil operators can enter into a JOA to share the risk and expense of gas an…

3 minute read

Joint Resolution - Further Readings

A type of measure that Congress may consider and act upon, the other types being bills, concurrent resolutions, and simple resolutions, in addition to treaties in the Senate. Like a bill, a joint resolution must be approved, in identical form, by both the House and the Senate, and signed by the president. Like a bill, it has the force of law if approved. A joint resolution is distinguished from a …

1 minute read

Joint and Several Liability

A designation of liability by which members of a group are either individually or mutually responsible to a party in whose favor a judgment has been awarded. Joint and several liability is a form of liability that is used in civil cases where two or more people are found liable for damages. The winning plaintiff in such a case may collect the entire judgment from any one of the parties, or from an…

1 minute read

Joint Stock Company

An association engaged in a business for profit with ownership interests represented by shares of stock. A joint stock company is financed with capital invested by the members or stockholders who receive transferable shares, or stock. It is under the control of certain selected managers called directors. A joint stock company is a form of partnership, possessing the element of personal liability w…

2 minute read

Joint Tenancy

Joint tenants usually share ownership of land, but the property may instead be money or other items. Four main features mark this type of ownership: (1) The joint tenants own an undivided interest in the property as a whole; each share is equal, and no one joint tenant can ever have a larger share. (2) The estates of the joint tenants are vested (meaning fixed and unalterable by any condition) for…

2 minute read

Joint Tortfeasor

Two or more individuals with joint and several liability in a tort action for the same injury to the same person or property. If the plaintiff is awarded damages, each joint tortfeasor is responsible for paying a portion of the damages, based on the percentage of the injury caused by his or her negligent act. The defendant who pays more than his or her share of the damages, or who pays more than h…

less than 1 minute read

Joint Venture - Further Readings

An association of two or more individuals or companies engaged in a solitary business enterprise for profit without actual partnership or incorporation; also called a joint adventure. A joint venture is a contractual business undertaking between two or more parties. It is similar to a business partnership, with one key difference: a partnership generally involves an ongoing, long-term business rel…

2 minute read