Edwin Meese III is an American attorney, law professor, author and member of the Republican Party who served in official capacities within the Ronald Reagan's gubernatorial administration (1967–1974), the Reagan presidential transition team (1980–81) and the Reagan administration (1981–1985). Following the 1984 election, he was considered for the position of White House Chief of Staff by President Reagan, but James Baker was chosen instead. Meese eventually rose to hold the position of the 75th United States Attorney General (1985–1988), a position from which he resigned following the Wedtech scandal.
The Domestic Violence Offender Gun Ban, often called the "Lautenberg Amendment", is an amendment to the Omnibus Consolidated Appropriations Act of 1997, enacted by the 104th United States Congress in 1996, which bans access to firearms by people convicted of crimes of domestic violence. The act is often referred to as "the Lautenberg Amendment" after its sponsor, Senator Frank Lautenberg. Lautenberg proposed the amendment after a decision from the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, involving underenforcement of domestic violence laws brought under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. President Bill Clinton signed the law as part of the Omnibus Appropriations Act of 1997.
In politics, a defector is a person who gives up allegiance to one state in exchange for allegiance to another, changing sides in a way which is considered illegitimate by the first state. More broadly, it involves abandoning a person, cause, or doctrine to which one is bound by some tie, as of allegiance or duty.
Frank Hoover Easterbrook is an American lawyer, jurist, and legal scholar who has served as a United States circuit judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit since 1985. He was the Seventh Circuit's chief judge from 2006 to 2013.
United States v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 649 (1898), was a landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court which held that "a child born in the United States, of parents of Chinese descent, who, at the time of his birth, are subjects of the Emperor of China, but have a permanent domicil and residence in the United States, and are there carrying on business, and are not employed in any diplomatic or official capacity under the Emperor of China", automatically became a U.S. citizen at birth. This decision established an important precedent in its interpretation of the Citizenship Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution. Any child born in the United States is a US citizen from birth, with the sole exception of children born to a parent or parents with diplomatic immunity, since such parent is not a "subject to the US law" as the decision requires.
Pavlo Ivanovych Lazarenko is a former Ukrainian politician, who served as Prime Minister from 1996 to 1997. Following a jury trial in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California, petitioner was convicted on one count of conspiring to commit money laundering, in violation of 18 U.S.C. 1956(h); seven counts of money laundering, in violation of 18 U.S.C. 1956(a)(1)(B) and (2)(B); five counts of wire fraud, in violation of 18 U.S.C. 1343 (1994) and 18 U.S.C. 1346; and one count of interstate transportation of stolen property, in violation of 18 U.S.C. 2314. The judge threw out out the charges involving crimes related to the gas industry and other international charges. On the counts that remained for which he was convicted, he was sentenced to 108 months of imprisonment, to be followed by three years of supervised release. Pet. App. 10, 45-49. However, the court of appeals affirmed the conspiracy and money laundering convictions, reversed the wire fraud and interstate transportation of stolen property convictions, vacated petitioner's sentence, and remanded for resentencing. Eventually only eight of 53 counts survived the judicial process. "Although the appellate court eventually upheld the convictions, it gave serious consideration to the defense argument that the jury was improperly influenced by hearing evidence relating to counts that were dismissed and that a new trial should have been granted."
In re Aimster Copyright Litigation, 334 F.3d 643, was a case in which the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit addressed copyright infringement claims brought against Aimster, concluding that a preliminary injunction against the file-sharing service was appropriate because the copyright owners were likely to prevail on their claims of contributory infringement, and that the services could have non-infringing users was insufficient reason to reverse the district court's decision. The appellate court also noted that the defendant could have limited the quantity of the infringements if it had eliminated an encryption system feature, and if it had monitored the use of its systems. This made it so that the defense did not fall within the safe harbor of 17 U.S.C. § 512(i). and could not be used as an excuse to not know about the infringement. In addition, the court decided that the harm done to the plaintiff was irreparable and outweighed any harm to the defendant created by the injunction.
Danny Julián Boggs is an American attorney and a Senior United States Circuit Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. He was appointed to the court in 1986 and served as its Chief Judge from September 2003 to August 2009. Boggs was on the short list of President George W. Bush's candidates for the U.S. Supreme Court.
Diane Schwerm Sykes is an American jurist and lawyer who serves as the chief judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. She served as a justice of the Wisconsin Supreme Court from 1999 to 2004.
Walter Polovchak is a Ukrainian-American man who, as a child, became the center of the legal case Polovchak v. Meese after he refused, at 12, to leave the United States to return to Ukraine, then part of the USSR, with his parents.
Diane Pamela Wood is an American attorney and jurist who serves as a United States Circuit Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, and a senior lecturer at the University of Chicago Law School.
The Law That Never Was: The Fraud of the 16th Amendment and Personal Income Tax is a 1985 book by William J. Benson and Martin J. "Red" Beckman which claims that the Sixteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, commonly known as the income tax amendment, was never properly ratified. In 2007, and again in 2009, Benson's contentions were ruled to be fraudulent.
Timothy Michael Tymkovich is the Chief United States Circuit Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit.
Garcia-Mir v. Meese, 788 F.2d 1446, was a decision by the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals, which ruled that the United States could indefinitely detain Cuban refugees who had arrived during the 1980 Mariel boatlift.
O'Connor v. Donaldson, 422 U.S. 563 (1975), was a landmark decision of the US Supreme Court in mental health law ruling that a state cannot constitutionally confine a non-dangerous individual who is capable of surviving safely in freedom by themselves or with the help of willing and responsible family members or friends. Since the trial court jury found, upon ample evidence, that petitioner did so confine respondent, the Supreme Court upheld the trial court's conclusion that petitioner had violated respondent's right to liberty.
People v. Beardsley 150 Mich. 206, 113 N.W. 1128 (1907) is a well-known case that illustrates the parameters around the legal necessity of a duty to act, and the criminal liability of failure to act when there is an obligation to provide reasonable assistance. In Jones v. United States 308 F.2d 307, the categories falling under this legal duty were set forth. They include duties based on statute, duties based on contract, duties based on the voluntary assuming of responsibility as for the care of a child, and duties based on legal relationships, such as between parent and child or husband and a wife.
Tax protesters in the United States advance a number of constitutional arguments asserting that the imposition, assessment and collection of the federal income tax violates the United States Constitution. These kinds of arguments, though related to, are distinguished from statutory and administrative arguments, which presuppose the constitutionality of the income tax, as well as from general conspiracy arguments, which are based upon the proposition that the three branches of the federal government are involved together in a deliberate, on-going campaign of deception for the purpose of defrauding individuals or entities of their wealth or profits. Although constitutional challenges to U.S. tax laws are frequently directed towards the validity and effect of the Sixteenth Amendment, assertions that the income tax violates various other provisions of the Constitution have been made as well.
Reno v. Flores, 507 U.S. 292 (1993), was a Supreme Court of the United States case that addressed the detention and release of unaccompanied minors.
Parental child abduction is the hiding, taking, or keeping hold of a child by their parent while defying the rights of the child's other parent or another member of the family.
Adoptive Couple v. Baby Girl, 570 U.S. 637 (2013), was a decision of the Supreme Court of the United States that held that several sections of the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) do not apply to Native American biological fathers who are not custodians of a Native American child. The court held that the procedures required by the ICWA to end parental rights do not apply when the child has never lived with the father. Additionally, the requirement to make extra efforts to preserve the Native American family also does not apply, nor is the preferred placement of the child in another Native American family required when no other party has formally sought to adopt the child.
