Free Legal Encyclopedia: Recovered memory to Repugnancy
Recuse
In some cases the parties to a proceeding may waive the judge's disqualification and allow the judge to preside over the case. The judge's disqualification is waived when both parties agree to the waiver or when one or more of the parties continues to participate in the proceedings. The term recusation was at one time considered an exception to jurisdiction, the effect of which was t…
Stanley Forman Reed
Reed was born on December 31, 1884, in Macon County, Kentucky. Educated at private schools, he graduated from Kentucky Wesleyan College in 1902. He earned a second bachelor's degree at Yale University. Reed attended law Stanley F. Reed. CORBIS school at both the University of Virginia and Columbia University but never completed his law degree. In 1908 he went to Paris and studied fo…
Referee
A judicial officer who presides over civil hearings but usually does not have the authority or power to render judgment. Referees are usually appointed by a judge in the district in which the judge presides. Referees aid the judge by hearing certain matters and by making recommendations concerning special or complicated issues. Judges generally delegate a portion of their judicial power to referee…
Referendum
The right reserved to the people to approve or reject an act of the legislature, or the right of the people to approve or reject legislation that has been referred to them by the legislature. The referendum, along with the initiative, are the two forms of direct legislation adopted by many states during the direct democracy movement of the early twentieth century. Referendum allows the people to s…
Reform Party - Further Readings
H. Ross Perot, founder of Electronic Data Systems, Inc., ran for president in 1992 as an independent candidate and received 19 percent of the popular vote. In September 1995 Perot organized the Reform Party and was the party's 1996 presidential candidate. The Reform Party's ticket, which included Perot's running mate, Pat Choate, appeared on the ballot in every state and won e…
Reformation
Legal documents, such as contracts, deeds, mortgages, and trusts, are all proper subjects for reformation. Since the original intent of the parties must control, however, a totally new agreement cannot be created through reformation. …
Reformatories
State institutions for the confinement of juvenile delinquents. Reformatories—which are also known as houses of refuge, state vocational institutions, reform schools, juvenile correction centers, and industrial or training schools—are generally not considered prisons. In some states, however, they are part of the prison system with adult inmates. …
Regents of the University of California v. Bakke - Further Readings
A 1978 decision by the Supreme Court, Regents of the University of California v. Bakke, 438 U.S. Allan Bakke on his first day of medical school at the University of California, Davis, in September 1978. The Supreme Court's ruling that the university's admission plan had excluded Bakke on the basis of race allowed for Bakke's admittance but left questions of the use of race…
Registration of Land Titles
A system by which ownership of real property is established through the issuance of an official certificate indicating the name of the individual in whom such ownership is vested. Land titles are registered through a statutory process called the Torrens title system, in somewhat the same way that automobile titles are now registered in most states. Under current Torrens acts, land ownership can be…
Regressive Tax - Further Readings
A tax with a rate that decreases as the taxpayer's income increases. Consumption taxes, which are taxes on consumer goods and services, are usually regressive because individuals with lower incomes spend a larger portion of their income on these goods and services than higher-income individuals do. Some examples of these consumption taxes are the taxes on alcohol and tobacco, also referred …
Regulation
A rule of order having the force of law, prescribed by a superior or competent authority, relating to the actions of those under the authority's control. Regulations are issued by various federal government departments and agencies to carry out the intent of legislation enacted by Congress. Administrative agencies, often called "the bureaucracy," perform a number of different …
William Hubbs Rehnquist
William Hubbs Rehnquist was appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court in 1972 and was elevated to the position of chief justice in 1986. A political and judicial conservative, Rehnquist has consistently sought to limit the power of the federal government to intervene in areas that are traditionally left to the states. Rehnquist modeled the Senate proceedings after the 1868 trial. The trial little r…
Reinsurance - Further Readings
The contract made between an insurance company and a third party to protect the insurance company from losses. The contract provides for the third party to pay for the loss sustained by the insurance company when the company makes a payment on the original contract. The parties to the reinsurance contract are the reinsurer, the reinsured, and the original policyholder. The reinsurer is the third p…
Release - Validity, Torts
A contractual agreement by which one individual assents to relinquish a claim or right under the law to another individual against whom such claim or right is enforceable. No particular form or language is required for a release, provided the contract is complete and clearly indicates the releasor's intention. In the absence of a specific statutory provision, releases need not be in writing…
Release Time Program
The name of the arrangement by which local public school boards permit students to be dismissed from classes prior to the completion of the regular school day for purposes of religious instruction. Vashti McCollum and her son, Terry. McCollum was successful in her 1948 challenge of an Illinois public school release time program, which the Supreme Court found unconstitutional. AP/WIDE WORLD PH…
Religion - Establishment Clause, Jesus, Meet Santa, Agostini V. Felton, Free Exercise Clause, Religious Oaths Prohibited
To determine whether an action of the federal or state government infringes upon a person's right to freedom of religion, the court must decide what qualifies as religion or religious activities for purposes of the First Amendment. The Supreme Court has interpreted religion to mean a sincere and meaningful belief that occupies in the life of its possessor a place parallel to the place held …
Remainder
A future interest held by one person in the real property of another that will take effect upon the expiration of the other property interests created at the same time as the future interest. The law of real property permits a person who owns real estate to convey all or part of her rights in the property to another person or persons. Legal conveyances of property become more complicated when the …
Remedy - Nature Of Remedies - Provisional Remedies
The manner in which a right is enforced or satisfied by a court when some harm or injury, recognized by society as a wrongful act, is inflicted upon an individual. The law of remedies is concerned with the character and extent of relief to which an individual who has brought a legal action is entitled once the appropriate court procedure has been followed, and the individual has established that h…
Removal
The transfer of a person or thing from one place to another. The transfer of a case from one court to another. In this sense, removal generally refers to a transfer from a court in one jurisdiction to a court in another, whereas a change of venue may be granted simply to move a case to another location within the same jurisdiction. Normally a plaintiff has the right to choose the court where he or…
Janet Reno - Further Readings
Reno was born on July 21, 1938, in Miami, Florida. Her parents were journalists who worked for Miami daily newspapers. Reno attended public schools in Dade County and enrolled at Cornell University in 1956. After her graduation in 1960, she attended Harvard Law School, one of only 16 women in a class of more than 500 students. She graduated in 1963 but found that her gender made it difficult to fi…
Rent Strike
An organized protest on the part of tenants in which they withhold the payment of consideration for the use or occupation of property from their landlord until their grievances are settled. A rent strike is ordinarily unlawful since a tenant who occupies leasehold premises has a legal obligation to pay rent. Even if a landlord does not make needed repairs or provide necessary services, a tenant or…
Renunciation of War
President Calvin Coolidge, Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover, and Secretary of State Frank Kellogg (all three standing), with representatives of the governments that ratified the Kellogg-Briand Pact, a formal renunciation of war. LIBRARY OF CONGRESS signatories and nonparty states, and against a signatory that had derogated its obligations under the treaty by going to war. …
Reorganization Plan
A scheme authorized by federal law and promulgated by the president whereby he or she alters the structure of federal agencies to promote government efficiency and economy through a transfer, consolidation, coordination, authorization, or abolition of functions. A reorganization plan must specify the reorganizations that the president deems to be necessary after making an investigation. A plan may…
Reparation - Further Readings
Compensation for an injury; redress for a wrong inflicted. The losing countries in a war often must pay damages to the victors for the economic harm that the losing countries inflicted during wartime. These damages are commonly called military reparations. The term reparation may also be applied to other situations where one party must pay for damages inflicted upon another party. The treaty requi…
Report
An official or formal statement of facts or proceedings. To give an account of; to relate; to tell or convey information; the written statement of such an account. For example, one kind of report is the formal statement in writing made to a court by a master, a clerk, or a referee who has been appointed to inquire into a particular matter for the court. Sometimes the report of a public official is…
Reporter
One who prepares a summary or gives an account. A court reporter is a person who records court proceedings as they take place and then later transcribes the account. A published volume of the decisions of a court or a group of courts. The National Reporter System, published by Thomson West, is the most comprehensive collection of the decisions of the appellate courts of the states and of the Unite…
Reprisal
The notion of proportionality is important in reprisals. Any response from an aggrieved country must be proportional to the injury it sustained. For example, if an enemy uses an illegal weapon such as a chemical warhead, the concept of reprisal would permit the use of weapons that would "otherwise be unlawful in order to compel the enemy to cease its prior violation." In addition to …
Republic
That form of government in which the administration of affairs is open to all the citizens. A political unit or "state," independent of its form of government. The word republic, derived from the Latin res publica, or "public thing," refers to a form of government where the citizens conduct their affairs for their own benefit rather than for the benefit of a ruler. Hist…
Republican Party - The Republican Party In The New Millennium
Republicans depended upon the support of northern voters and courted the vote of emancipated slaves. The party fanned hostility by reminding northern voters of the South's disloyalty during the war. The Republicans were the dominant party in the United States from 1860 to 1931, and the party's base among southern whites began to grow in the 1950s, when political loyalties began to sh…