Probation in criminal law is a period of supervision over an offender, ordered by the court instead of serving time in prison. In some jurisdictions, the term probation applies only to community sentences (alternatives to incarceration), such as suspended sentences. In others, probation also includes supervision of those conditionally released from prison on parole. An offender on probation is ordered to follow certain conditions set forth by the court, often under the supervision of a probation...
Jul 29, 2021•12 min•Season 9Ep. 19
Textualism is a formalist theory in which the interpretation of the law is primarily based on the ordinary meaning of the legal text, where no consideration is given to non-textual sources, such as intention of the law when passed, the problem it was intended to remedy, or significant questions regarding the justice or rectitude of the law. Definition. The textualist will "look at the statutory structure and hear the words as they would sound in the mind of a skilled, objectively reasonable user...
Jul 28, 2021•9 min•Season 4Ep. 41
Adultery (from Latin adulterium) is extramarital sex that is considered objectionable on social, religious, moral, or legal grounds. Although the sexual activities that constitute adultery vary, as well as the social, religious, and legal consequences, the concept exists in many cultures and is similar in Christianity, Judaism and Islam. Adultery is viewed by many jurisdictions as offensive to public morals, being a mistreatment of the marriage relationship. Historically, many cultures considere...
Jul 27, 2021•16 min•Season 11Ep. 13
TransUnion LLC v Ramirez, (2021), was a United States Supreme Court case dealing with standing under Article III of the Constitution related to class-action suits against private defendants. In a 5–4 decision, the Court ruled that only those that can show concrete harm have standing to seek damages against private defendants. Background. Sergio Ramirez had been in the process of purchasing a new car in 2011, and as typically done, had his credit rating reviewed by the dealership. Using of the cr...
Jul 26, 2021•5 min•Season 12Ep. 4
An advance healthcare directive, also known as living will, personal directive, advance directive, medical directive or advance decision, is a legal document in which a person specifies what actions should be taken for their health if they are no longer able to make decisions for themselves because of illness or incapacity. In the U.S. it has a legal status in itself, whereas in some countries it is legally persuasive without being a legal document. A living will is one form of advance directive...
Jul 23, 2021•17 min•Season 8Ep. 23
Parole is the early release of a prisoner who agrees to abide by certain conditions, originating from the French word "parole" ("speech, spoken words" but also "promise"). The term became associated during the Middle Ages with the release of prisoners who gave their word. This differs greatly from pardon, amnesty or commutation of sentence in that parolees are still considered to be serving their sentences, and may be returned to prison if they violate the conditions of their parole. Development...
Jul 22, 2021•18 min•Season 9Ep. 18
The purposive approach (sometimes referred to as purposivism, purposive construction, purposive interpretation, or the modern principle in construction) is an approach to statutory and constitutional interpretation under which common law courts interpret an enactment (a statute, part of a statute, or a clause of a constitution) within the context of the law's purpose. Purposive interpretation is a derivation of the mischief rule set in Heydon's Case, and intended to replace the mischief rule, th...
Jul 21, 2021•19 min•Season 4Ep. 40
Grounds for divorce are regulations specifying the circumstances under which a person will be granted a divorce. Adultery is the most common grounds for divorce. However, there are countries that view male adultery differently than female adultery as grounds for divorce. Before decisions on divorce are considered, one might check into state laws and country laws for legal divorce or separation as each culture has stipulations for divorce. Grounds for divorce. Cruel and inhuman treatment constitu...
Jul 20, 2021•5 min•Season 11Ep. 12
Minerva Surgical, Inc. v Hologic, Inc was a United States Supreme Court case dealing with the principle of assignor estoppel and its application. The Supreme Court reaffirmed the principle of assignor estoppel, however with the exception that the doctrine is only applied when assignors assertions are actually consistent with previous representations as to the patent. The majority decision was written by Justice Kagan, with Justice Alito and Justice Barrett filing separate dissenting opinions....
Jul 20, 2021•4 min•Season 12Ep. 3
An inheritance tax is a tax paid by a person who inherits money or property of a person who has died, whereas an estate tax is a levy on the estate (money and property) of a person who has died. International tax law distinguishes between an estate tax and an inheritance tax—an estate tax is assessed on the assets of the deceased, while an inheritance tax is assessed on the legacies received by the estate's beneficiaries. However, this distinction is not always observed; for example, the UK's "i...
Jul 16, 2021•18 min•Season 8Ep. 22
Life imprisonment is any sentence of imprisonment for a crime under which convicted people are to remain in prison either for the rest of their natural lives or until pardoned, paroled or otherwise commuted to a fixed term. Crimes for which, in some countries, a person could receive this sentence include murder, attempted murder, conspiracy to commit murder, apostasy, terrorism, severe child abuse, rape, child rape, espionage, treason, high treason, drug dealing, drug trafficking, drug possessio...
Jul 15, 2021•24 min•Season 9Ep. 17
In the context of United States law, originalism is a concept regarding the interpretation of the Constitution that asserts that all statements in the constitution must be interpreted based on the original understanding "at the time it was adopted". This concept views the Constitution as stable from the time of enactment and that the meaning of its contents can be changed only by the steps set out in Article Five. This notion stands in contrast to the concept of the Living Constitution, which as...
Jul 14, 2021•25 min•Season 4Ep. 39
Adultery (from Latin adulterium) is extramarital sex that is considered objectionable on social, religious, moral, or legal grounds. Although the sexual activities that constitute adultery vary, as well as the social, religious, and legal consequences, the concept exists in many cultures and is similar in Christianity, Judaism and Islam. Adultery is viewed by many jurisdictions as offensive to public morals, being a mistreatment of the marriage relationship. Historically, many cultures considere...
Jul 13, 2021•23 min•Season 11Ep. 11
Americans for Prosperity Foundation v Bonta was a United States Supreme Court case dealing with the disclosure of donors to non-profit organizations. The case challenges California's requirement that requires non-profit organizations to disclose the identity of their donors in the state tax returns. The case was consolidated with Thomas More Law Center v Bonta. In July 2021, the Supreme Court ruled in a 6 thru 3 decision that California's requirement burdened the donors' First Amendment rights a...
Jul 12, 2021•7 min•Season 12Ep. 2
In the law of inheritance, a laughing heir is an heir who is legally entitled to inherit the property of a person who has died, even though that heir is only distantly related to the deceased, and therefore has no personal connection or reason to feel bereaved over the death. In most jurisdictions, the law of intestacy requires that the property of a person who died without leaving a will must first go to that person's immediate family, such as a spouse, descendants, ascendants, or persons desce...
Jul 09, 2021•9 min•Season 8Ep. 21
An execution warrant (also called death warrant or black warrant) is a writ that authorizes the execution of a condemned person. An execution warrant is not to be confused with a "license to kill", which operates like an arrest warrant but with deadly force instead of arrest as the end goal. Imprisonment (from imprison, via French emprisonner, originally from Latin prensio, arrest, from prehendere, prendere, "to seize") in law is the specific state of being physically incarcerated or confined in...
Jul 08, 2021•12 min•Season 9Ep. 16
The Living Constitution, or loose constructionism, is the claim that the United States Constitution and other constitutions hold a dynamic meaning that evolves and adapts to new circumstances even if the document is not formally amended. The Constitution is said to develop alongside the needs of a society and to provide a more malleable tool for governments. The idea is associated with views that contemporaneous society should be taken into account in the constitutional interpretation of phrases...
Jul 07, 2021•14 min•Season 4Ep. 38
Divorce (also known as dissolution of marriage) is the process of terminating a marriage or marital union. Divorce usually entails the canceling or reorganizing of the legal duties and responsibilities of marriage, thus dissolving the bonds of matrimony between a married couple under the rule of law of the particular country or state. Divorce laws vary considerably around the world, but in most countries, divorce requires the sanction of a court or other authority in a legal process, which may i...
Jul 06, 2021•18 min•Season 11Ep. 10
Brnovich v Democratic National Committee, (2021), was a United States Supreme Court case related to voting rights established by the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (VRA), and specifically the applicability of Section 2's general provision barring discrimination against minorities in state and local election laws in the wake of the United States Supreme Court decision in Shelby County v Holder in 2013 which removed the preclearance requirements for election laws for certain states that had been set by...
Jul 05, 2021•15 min•Season 12Ep. 1
Simultaneous death is a problem of inheritance which occurs when two people (sometimes referred to as commorientes) die at, or very near, the same time, and at least one of them is entitled to part or all of the other's estate on their death. This is usually the result of an un-natural death occurring from events such as an accident, a homicide, or a murder-suicide. Under the common law, if there was any evidence whatsoever that one party had survived the other, even by a few moments, then the e...
Jul 02, 2021•13 min•Season 8Ep. 20
Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, is the state-sanctioned killing of a person as punishment for a crime. The sentence ordering that someone is punished with the death penalty is called a death sentence, and the act of carrying out such a sentence is known as an execution. A prisoner awaiting their execution is condemned and is "on death row". Crimes that are punishable by death are known as capital crimes, capital offences or capital felonies, and vary depending on the jurisdi...
Jul 01, 2021•15 min•Season 9Ep. 14
In American constitutional law, a statute is void for vagueness and unenforceable if it is too vague for the average citizen to understand, and a constitutionally-protected interest cannot tolerate permissible activity to be chilled within the range of the vagueness (either because the statute is a penal statute with criminal or quasi-criminal civil penalties, or because the interest invaded by the vague law is a strict scrutiny constitutional right). There are several reasons a statute may be c...
Jun 30, 2021•10 min•Season 4Ep. 37
The marriage age in the United States is set by each state and territory, either by statute or the common law applies. An individual can marry in the United States as of right, without parental consent or other authorization, on reaching 18 years of age (and used to be 21 years of age before 1971) as that is the age of majority, in all states except in Nebraska, where the general marriage age is 19 as that is the age of majority and Mississippi, where the general marriage age is 21 as that is th...
Jun 29, 2021•16 min•Season 11Ep. 9
Entrapment is a practice in which a law enforcement agent or agent of the state induces a person to commit a "crime" that the person would have otherwise been unlikely or unwilling to commit. It "is the conception and planning of an offense by an officer or agent, and the procurement of its commission by one who would not have perpetrated it except for the trickery, persuasion or fraud of the officer or state agent." Police conduct rising to the level of entrapment is broadly discouraged and thu...
Jun 28, 2021•15 min•Season 10Ep. 10
Probate is the judicial process whereby a will is "proved" in a court of law and accepted as a valid public document that is the true last testament of the deceased, or whereby the estate is settled according to the laws of intestacy in the state of residence of the deceased at time of death in the absence of a legal will. The granting of probate is the first step in the legal process of administering the estate of a deceased person, resolving all claims and distributing the deceased person's pr...
Jun 25, 2021•19 min•Season 8Ep. 19
Overseas and nonresident citizens. U.S. citizens residing overseas who would otherwise have the right to vote are guaranteed the right to vote in federal elections by the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act (UOCAVA) of 1986. As a practical matter, individual states implement UOCAVA. A citizen who has never resided in the United States can vote if a parent is eligible to vote in certain states. In some of these states the citizen can vote in local, state, and federal elections, in...
Jun 24, 2021•11 min•Season 4Ep. 36
A discharge is a type of sentence imposed by a court whereby no punishment is imposed. An absolute discharge is an unconditional discharge whereby the court finds that a crime has technically been committed but that any punishment of the defendant would be inappropriate and the case is closed. In some jurisdictions, an absolute discharge means there is no conviction on the defendant's record, despite the plea of the defendant. A conditional discharge is an order made by a criminal court whereby ...
Jun 23, 2021•16 min•Season 9Ep. 13
Annulment is a legal procedure within secular and religious legal systems for declaring a marriage null and void. Unlike divorce, it is usually retroactive, meaning that an annulled marriage is considered to be invalid from the beginning almost as if it had never taken place (though some jurisdictions provide that the marriage is only void from the date of the annulment; for example, this is the case in section 12 of the Matrimonial Causes Act 1973 in England and Wales). In legal terminology, an...
Jun 22, 2021•20 min•Season 11Ep. 8
Concerns about videotaping. Camera perspective bias. Psychological research suggests that evaluations of videotaped confessions can be affected by the camera perspective used at the initial recording. Extensive empirical data has been collected in this area by manipulating the position of the camera: to a suspect-focus (looking at the front of the suspect from waist up and the back of the detective's head and shoulders), detective-focus (looking at the front of the detective and the back of the ...
Jun 21, 2021•19 min•Season 10Ep. 9
In common-law jurisdictions, administration of an estate on death arises if the deceased is legally intestate, meaning they did not leave a will, or some assets are not disposed of by their will. Where a person dies leaving a will appointing an executor, and that executor validly disposes of the property of the deceased within England and Wales, then the estate will go to probate. However, if no will is left, or the will is invalid or incomplete in some way, then administrators must be appointed...
Jun 18, 2021•11 min•Season 8Ep. 18
