Lemuel Shaw - Further Readings
Lemuel Shaw. LIBRARY OF CONGRESS Shaw's thirty years on the Massachusetts bench ended with his retirement in 1860. He died in Boston on March 30, 1861. …
Free Legal Encyclopedia: Lemuel Shaw Biography to Special plea
Shays's Rebellion - Further Readings
Three years after peace with Great Britain, the states were buffeted by inflation, devalued currency, and mounting debt. Among the hardest hit was Massachusetts. Stagnant trade and rampant unemployment had devastated farmers who, unable to sell their produce, had their property seized by courts in order to pay off debts and overdue taxes. Hundreds of farmers were dispossessed; dozens of them were …
Samuel H. Sheppard - Further Readings
On July 4, 1954, 31-year-old Marilyn Sheppard who was four months pregnant, was bludgeoned to death in the bedroom of the couple's impressive Lake Erie, Pennsylvania home. According to Sheppard, he had been sleeping on a downstairs couch when he heard noises and moans coming from the bedroom where his wife was sleeping. He ran to help her but was knocked unconscious by a bushy-haired man. H…
Sheriff
Usually the chief peace officer of a county. The modern office of sheriff in the United States descends from a one-thousand-year-old English tradition: a "shire-reeve" (shire-keeper) is the oldest appointment of the English crown. Because county governments were typically the first established units of government in newly settled American territories, sheriffs were among the first el…
Sherman Anti-Trust Act - Restraint Of Trade, Concerted Action, Price Fixing, Market Allocations, Boycotts, Tying Arrangements
The prevailing economic theory supporting antitrust laws in the United States is that the public is best served by free competition in trade and industry. When businesses fairly compete for the consumer's dollar, the quality of products and services increases while the prices decrease. However, many businesses would rather dictate the price, quantity, and quality of the goods that they prod…
Sherman Compromise
Representatives from twelve of the thirteen states attended the meeting; Rhode Island feared changes in the existing monetary system and refused to send delegates. One of the most pressing issues was the formation of a legislative body that would fairly represent the interests of the states. …
John Sherman
Sherman was born on May 10, 1823, in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. His father was a judge and his older brother, William Tecumseh Sherman, became a renowned Union general during the Civil War. Sherman was admitted to the Ohio bar in 1844 and established a successful law practice in Mansfield, Ohio. Soon, however, his interests turned to politics. Elected to the U.S. House of Representatives as a Republ…
Roger Sherman
Roger Sherman was a colonial and U.S. politician and judge who played a critical role at the Constitutional Convention of 1787, devising a plan for legislative representation that was accepted by large and small states. His actions at the convention in Philadelphia came near the end of a distinguished life in public service. After America won its independence, Sherman devoted himself to Connecticu…
Shipping Law - Registration And Ownership, Agents, Shipping Contracts, Maritime Liens, Marine Insurance, Salvage, General Average
The area of maritime law that is concerned with ships and the individuals employed in or around them, as well as the shipment of goods by merchant vessels. …
George Shiras Jr. - Further Readings
Shiras was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on January 26, 1832, to a wealthy brewing family. He attended Yale Law School in 1853. Two years later he completed his training at a law office in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, before starting a legal practice with his brother. The practice specialized in representing the railroads George Shiras Jr. LIBRARY OF CONGRESS and other big industrie…
Shock-the-Conscience Test
A determination of whether a state agent's actions fall outside the standards of civilized decency. In Rochin three state law enforcement officers, acting on information that Antonio Rochin was selling narcotics, illegally entered Rochin's room. When the officers noticed two capsules on a bedside table, Rochin grabbed the capsules and put them in his mouth. The three officers then wr…
Shoplifting
Theft of merchandise from a store or business establishment. …
Show Cause Order
A show cause order can be viewed as an accelerated motion. A motion is an application to the court for an order that seeks answers to questions that are collateral to the main object of the action. For example, in a civil lawsuit the plaintiff generally requests from the defendant A sample show cause order documents pertinent to the case. If the defendant refuses to provide the documents or…
Show-Up
The live presentation of a criminal suspect to a victim or witness of a crime. A show-up usually occurs immediately or shortly after a crime has occurred. If law enforcement personnel see a person who they suspect is the perpetrator of a very recent crime, the officers may apprehend the suspect and bring him back to the scene of the crime and show him to witnesses, or the officers may take the sus…
Sierra Club - Further Readings
The Sierra Club is a nonprofit, member-supported public interest organization that promotes conservation of the natural environment by influencing public policy decisions. In addition, the Sierra Club organizes participation in wilderness activities for its members, including mountain climbing, backpacking, and camping. It is the oldest and largest nonprofit, grassroots environmental organization …
Signature - Requisites And Validity, Abbreviations, Initials, Or Mark, Hand Of Party Or Another, Digital Signatures - Method
A mark or sign made by an individual on an instrument or document to signify knowledge, approval, acceptance, or obligation. The term signature is generally understood to mean the signing of a written document with one's own hand. However, it is not critical that a signature actually be written by hand for it to be legally valid. It may, for example, be typewritten, engraved, or stamped. Th…
O. J. Simpson - Further Readings
In the early hours of June 13, 1994, the bodies of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman were found lying in a pool of blood outside Nicole Simpson's Brentwood, California, condominium. Both victims had been brutally stabbed to death on the evening of June 12, but there were no eyewitnesses. After the slayings, Nicole Simpson's dog was found wandering around the upscale neighborhoo…
Simultaneous Death
Loss of life by two or more individuals concurrently or pursuant to circumstances that render it impossible to ascertain who predeceased whom. Because those state statutes that created presumptions proved inadequate, a majority of the states enacted the Uniform Simultaneous Death Act. Although some slight variations exist from one state to another, the law essentially provides that property will b…
Upton Beall Sinclair
Upton Beall Sinclair was a famous American writer and essayist whose book The Jungle, an exposé of Chicago's meatpacking industry, shocked the nation and led to the passage of the Pure Food and Drug Act in 1906. Sinclair was born September 20, 1878, to a prominent but financially troubled family in Baltimore, Maryland. Sinclair's father was a liquor salesman who was also an al…
Single Name Partnership
A business arrangement whereby two or more individuals, the partners, unite their skill, capital, A sample form for a single (or fictitious) name partnership or business and work in exchange for a proportional allocation of the profits and losses incurred but who engage in business under one name rather than the names of all the partners. Although technically not a legal term, the phra…
Sixteenth Amendment
The Sixteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution reads: The language of the Sixteenth Amendment addressed the issue in Pollock concerning apportionment, repealing the limitation imposed by article I. Soon after the amendment was ratified, Congress established a new personal income tax with rates ranging from 1 to 7 percent on income in excess of $3,000 for a single individual. …
Sixth Amendment - Speedy Trial, Public Trial, Right To Trial By An Impartial Jury, Notice Of Pending Criminal Charges
The Sixth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution reads: …
Slaughter-House Cases
The three companies filed suit, claiming that the law violated the Privileges and Immunities Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. They argued that this clause protected the right to labor freely. The Louisiana law restricted their freedom to butcher meat. Their challenge was unsuccessful in state court, after which they appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. …
Small Business Administration - Financial Assistance, Government Contracting, Business Initiatives, Minority Enterprise Development, Advocacy, Women's Business Ownership - Disaster Assistance, Investment Assistance, Small Business Development Centers
The Small Business Administration (SBA) is a federal agency that seeks to aid, counsel, assist, and protect the interests of small business. The SBA ensures that small business concerns receive a fair portion of federal government purchases, contracts, and subcontracts, as well as of the sales of government property. The agency is best known for its loans to small business concerns, state and loca…
Small Claims Court - Further Readings
A special court, sometimes called conciliation court, that provides expeditious, informal, and inexpensive adjudication of small claims. Every state has established a small claims or conciliation court to resolve legal disputes involving an amount of money that is less than a set dollar amount. At one time, $1,000 was the limit. However, many courts have raised the limit to $3,000, and a few will …
Smith Act
Under a 1956 amendment to the Smith Act, if two or more persons conspire to commit any offense described in the statute, each is subject to a maximum fine of $20,000 or a maximum term of imprisonment of twenty years, or both, and is ineligible for employment by the United States or its agencies for five years after conviction. The Smith Act, as enacted in 1940, contained a conspiracy provision, bu…
Mary Louise Smith - Further Readings
Smith was born on October 16, 1914, in Eddyville, Iowa. She attended Iowa State University, graduating with a degree in social work in 1935. She married Elmer M. Smith, a physician, and moved with him to Eagle Grove, Iowa. Smith raised three children and soon became active in local politics, winning a seat on the Eagle Grove school board. By 1996 Smith had been pushed to the margins of the Republi…
Robert Smith
Smith's father, John Smith, a native of Strabane, Ireland, immigrated to the American colonies in the 1740s. By 1759, he was living in Baltimore and had established himself as a merchant and shipping agent. In 1766, he financed the building of Baltimore's first market house and the development of the city's first residential neighborhood. He was an advocate of independence for…
William French Smith
William French Smith served as U.S. attorney general from 1981 to 1985. A longtime friend Smith was born on August 26, 1917, in Wilton, New Hampshire. He graduated from the University of California at Los Angeles in 1939 and from the Harvard Law School in 1942. From 1942 to 1946, Smith served in the U.S. Navy Reserve, reaching the rank of lieutenant. Smith remained a close adviser to Reagan a…
Smuggling
The criminal offense of bringing into, or removing from, a country those items that are prohibited or upon which customs or excise duties have not been paid. Federal law prohibits the importation of a number of items that are injurious to public health or welfare, including diseased plants or animals, obscene films and magazines, and illegal narcotics. Importation of certain items is prohibited fo…
Social Security - History, Old Age, Survivors, And Disability Insurance, The First Payments Of Social Security
A federal program designed to provide benefits to employees and their dependants through income for retirement, disability, and other purposes. The social security program is funded through a federal tax levied on employers and employees equally. …
Socialism - Further Readings
An economic and social theory that seeks to maximize wealth and opportunity for all people through public ownership and control of industries and social services. Under capitalism—defined as a global system based on technology transcending national boundaries—society was divided into two components: the bourgeoisie, who owned the methods of production, and the proletariat, the labore…
Socialist Party of the United States of America - Further Readings
The Socialist Party of the United States of America (SP-USA) is one of several parties claiming to be the heir to the country's original organized Socialist movement, the Socialist Labor Party (SLP). Support for the party has fluctuated over the years, but it remains a vigorous advocate of radical change of economic and social policy in the United States. Originally called the Workingmen&#x…
Software - Further Readings
Software instructs a computer what to do. (The computer's physical components are called hardware.) Computer software is the general term for a variety of procedures and routines that harness the computational power of a computer to produce, for example, a general operating system that coordinates the basic workings of the computer or specific applications that produce a database, a financi…
Soldiers' and Sailors' Civil Relief Act of (1918) - Further Readings
The act provides service members with three types of relief from judicial proceedings. They may request a stay of proceedings, a reopening of a default judgment, or a stay of execution against a judgment. To obtain any relief, a court first must find that the service members' ability to defend their cases was affected by their service. Service members may postpone proceedings during service…
Sole Proprietorship
A form of business in which one person owns all the assets of the business, in contrast to a partnership or a corporation. A person who does business for himself is engaged in the operation of a sole proprietorship. Anyone who does business without formally creating a business organization is a sole proprietor. Many small businesses operate as sole proprietorships. Professionals, consultants, and …
Solicitation
Urgent request, plea, or entreaty; enticing, asking. The criminal offense of urging someone to commit an unlawful act. The term solicitation is used in a variety of legal contexts. A person who asks someone to commit an illegal act has committed the criminal act of solicitation. An employee who agrees in an employment contract not to solicit business after leaving her employer and then mails a let…
Solicitor
A type of practicing lawyer in England who handles primarily office work. England has two types of practicing lawyers: solicitors and barristers. Unlike the United States, where a lawyer is allowed to handle office and trial work, England has developed a division of labor for lawyers. Solicitors generally handle office work, whereas barristers plead cases in court. However, there is some overlap. …
Solicitor General - Further Readings
Congress established the office of solicitor general in 1870 as part of the legislation creating the Department of Justice. Although early solicitors occasionally handled federal trials, for the most part the solicitor general has concentrated on appeals to the Supreme Court. In this role the solicitor has come to serve the interests of both the executive branch and the Supreme Court. The federal …
Solomon Amendment
The Solomon Amendment, 50 U.S.C.A. App. § 462(f), is federal legislation that denies male college students between the ages of 18 and 26 who fail to register for the military draft (under the Selective Service Act, 50 U.S.C.A. App. § 451 et seq.) eligibility to receive financial aid provided by the Basic Educational Opportunity Grant Program. Registration for the draft, which had bee…
Son of Sam Laws - Further Readings
Laws that enable a state to use the proceeds a criminal earns from recounting his or her crime in a book, movie, television show, or other depiction. The laws are named after David Berkowitz, a New York serial killer who left a note signed "Son of Sam" at the scene of one of his crimes. The New York legislature enacted the first Son of Sam law (N.Y. Exec. Law § 632-a) in 1977 …
Marvin J. Sonosky - Further Readings
Marvin J. Sonosky's legal work on behalf of Native Americans resulted in victories in Congress and the courts. Sonosky championed Indian causes during his long career as an attorney, representing several tribes. His single greatest accomplishment was winning the Black Hills case, a 24-year legal odyssey in which the Sioux nation asserted its claim to sacred ground taken by the federal …
Sony Corp. of America v. Universal City Studios - Further Readings
In Sony Corp. of America v. Universal City Studios, 464 U.S. 417, 104 S. Ct. 774, 78 L. Ed. 2d 574 (1984), also known as the Betamax case, the U.S. Supreme Court determined that Sony, a manufacturer of videocassette recorders (VCRs) did not infringe on copyrights owned by Universal City Studios and Walt Disney Productions by manufacturing and marketing Betamax VCRs. (The Court's opinion use…
David Hackett Souter - Opinions In The Early 2000s, Further Readings
Souter was born on September 17, 1939, in Melrose, Massachusetts, six miles north of Boston. The only son of Joseph Souter, a bank manager, and Helen Souter, a gift store clerk, the future associate justice was remembered by his childhood friends as an intense, intelligent, and family-oriented person who was endowed with a sharp wit, but no athletic ability. At age eleven Souter and his parents mo…
Southeast Asia Treaty Organization - Further Readings
The Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO) was an alliance organized pursuant to the Southeast Asia Defense Treaty to oppose the growing communist influence in Southeast Asia. The United States, the United Kingdom, France, Australia, New Zealand, Thailand, the Philippines, and Pakistan signed the treaty and accompanying Pacific Charter in Manila on September 8, 1954. The treaty became operativ…
Southern Christian Leadership Conference - Further Readings
The SCLC emerged in the wake of a successful boycott of buses in Montgomery, Alabama, by the city's black citizens in 1955, which had led to a December 1956 Supreme Court ruling upholding the desegregation of those buses (Gayle v. Browder, 352 U.S. 903, 77 S. Ct. 145, 1 L. Ed. 2d 114). Prodded by African American social activist Bayard Rustin, who hoped to carry the Montgomery victory to th…
Southern Poverty Law Center - Further Readings
In 1976 the center challenged the inhumane conditions of Alabama prisons. Since prevailing in that case, the center has worked with state officials to reform the prison system. In 1995 the state reestablished a practice whereby prison inmates were shackled together as they worked along the state highways. The center sued the state and eventually obtained an agreement prohibiting the use of "…
Spanish-American War - Further Readings
The conflict had its origins in Spain's determined effort in the 1890s to destroy the Cuban independence movement. As the brutality of the Spanish authorities was graphically reported in U.S. newspapers, especially Joseph Pulitzer's New York World and William Randolph Hearst's New York Journal, the U.S. public began to support an independent Cuba. In 1897 Spain proposed to res…
Special Appearance
The act of presenting oneself in a court and thereby submitting to the court's jurisdiction, but only for a specific purpose and not for all the purposes for which a lawsuit is brought. Some states have followed the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and have eliminated for state court matters the distinction between general and special appearances. Many states still acknowledge the distincti…
Special Courts - State And Local Special Courts, Federal Special Courts, Further Readings
Bodies within the judicial branch of government that generally address only one area of law or have specifically defined powers. The best-known courts are courts of general jurisdiction, which have unlimited trial jurisdiction, both civil and criminal, within their jurisdictional area. At the federal level, these are called district courts. At the state level, these courts have many different titl…
Special Damages
Pecuniary compensation for injuries that follow the initial injury for which compensation is sought. The terminology and classification of types of damages is varied, at times contradictory, and often confusing. The term "special damages" is one such term that can produce uncertainty, depending on the jurisdiction and context in which it is invoked. However, the definitions of specia…
Special Master - Further Readings
A representative of the court appointed to hear a case involving difficult or specialized issues. Rule 53 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (FRCP) provides the authority for the appointment of special masters by U.S. District Courts. Because state civil procedure rules are modeled on the FRCP, similar authority is granted to state trial courts. Rule 53 defines the word master to include refe…
Specialization - Further Readings
A career option pursued by some attorneys that entails the acquisition of detailed knowledge of, and proficiency in, a particular area of law. As the law in the United States becomes increasingly complex and covers a greater number of subjects, more and more attorneys are narrowing their practice to a limited field or fields. Even small-town general practitioners limit the range of matters they ha…