In United States law, an Alford plea, also called a Kennedy plea in West Virginia, an Alford guilty plea, and the Alford doctrine, is a guilty plea in criminal court, whereby a defendant in a criminal case does not admit to the criminal act and asserts innocence, but accepts imposition of a sentence. This plea is allowed even if the evidence to be presented by the prosecution would be likely to persuade a judge or jury to find the defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. This can be caused by circumstantial evidence and testimony favoring the prosecution, and difficulty finding evidence and witnesses that would aid the defense.
The Atlanta murders of 1979–1981, sometimes called the Atlanta child murders, are a series of murders committed in Atlanta, Georgia, between July 1979 and May 1981. Over the two-year period, at least 28 children, adolescents, and adults were killed. Wayne Williams, an Atlanta native who was 23 years old at the time of the last murder, was arrested, tried, and convicted of two of the adult murders and sentenced to two consecutive life terms.
Attempted murder is a crime of attempt in various jurisdictions.
Kevin Cooper is an American man currently imprisoned at San Quentin State Prison's death row. Cooper was found guilty of four murders in the Chino Hills area of California in 1983. Cooper's conviction has garnered repeated attention from both Nicholas Kristof in the New York Times and Erin Moriarty on the CBS News program "48 Hours." There have been accusations that Cooper received an inadequate defense, as well as prosecutorial misconduct such as destruction of evidence, withholding exculpatory evidence from the defense, planting of evidence, brainwashing to witnesses, and perjured testimony by the Sheriff's Department. There have also been practical questions raised, such as how Cooper, at 155 pounds, and allegedly acting alone, overpowered a 6-foot, 2-inch ex-military policeman and his athletic wife, both of whom had loaded firearms close at hand. It has also been questioned why a single perpetrator would use 3 or 4 different weapons to commit the murders, and why none of the victims were able to run away while the others were being attacked.
The Trenton Six is the group name for six African-American defendants tried for murder of an elderly white shopkeeper in January 1948 in Trenton, New Jersey. The six young men were convicted in August 1948 by an all-white jury of the murder and sentenced to death.
The doctrine of common purpose, common design, joint enterprise, joint criminal enterprise or parasitic accessory liability is a common law legal doctrine that imputes criminal liability to the participants in a criminal enterprise for all reasonable results from that enterprise. The common purpose doctrine was established in English law, and later adopted in other common-law jurisdictions including Scotland, Ireland, Australia, Trinidad and Tobago, the Solomon Islands, Texas, the International Criminal Court, and the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.
The Los Angeles Chinese massacre of 1871 was a racial massacre targeting Chinese immigrants in Los Angeles, California, United States that occurred on October 24, 1871. Approximately 500 white and Latino Americans attacked, harassed, robbed, and murdered the ethnic Chinese residents in what is today referred to as the old Chinatown neighborhood. The massacre took place on Calle de los Negros, also referred to as "Negro Alley". The mob gathered after hearing that a policeman and a rancher had been killed as a result of a conflict between rival tongs, the Nin Yung, and Hong Chow. As news of their death spread across the city, fueling rumors that the Chinese community "were killing whites wholesale", more men gathered around the boundaries of Negro Alley.
On June 15, 1920, three African-American circus workers, Elias Clayton, Elmer Jackson, and Isaac McGhie, suspects in an assault case, were taken from the jail and lynched by a White mob of thousands in Duluth, Minnesota. Rumors had circulated that six Black men had raped and robbed a nineteen-year-old White woman. A physician who examined her found no physical evidence of rape.
Although the legal system of Singapore is a common law system, the criminal law of Singapore is largely statutory in nature and historically derives largely from the Indian penal code. The general principles of criminal law, as well as the elements and penalties of general criminal offences such as assault, criminal intimidation, mischief, grievous hurt, theft, extortion, sex crimes and cheating, are set out in the Singaporean Penal Code. Other serious offences are created by statutes such as the Arms Offences Act, Kidnapping Act, Misuse of Drugs Act and Vandalism Act.
The Brooklyn Thrill Killers were a group of teenage boys who were convicted of killing one man and accused of killing another and committed acts of assault and torture against several other people in Brooklyn, a borough of New York City during the summer of 1954. The case attracted considerable media attention in the United States. It also fueled the controversy over comic books, which were accused at the time of causing sexual perversion and juvenile delinquency.
Anthony Crawford was an African American man who was killed by a lynch mob in Abbeville, South Carolina on October 21, 1916.
The history of violence against LGBT people in the United States is made up of assaults on gay men, lesbians, bisexuals, and transgender individuals (LGBTQ), legal responses to such violence, and hate crime statistics in the United States of America. The people who are the targets of such violence are believed to violate heteronormative rules and they are also believed to contravene perceived protocols of gender and sexual roles. People who are perceived to be LGBT may also be targeted for violence. Violence can also occur between couples who are of the same sex, with statistics showing that violence among female same-sex couples is more common than it is among couples of the opposite sex, but male same-sex violence is less common.
An axe murder is a murder in which the victim was struck and killed by an axe or hatchet.
In January 2017, four perpetrators: Jordan Hill, Tesfaye "Teefies" Cooper, and Brittany and Tanishia Covington committed a hate crime and other offenses against a mentally disabled man in Chicago, Illinois. The attackers, two black men and two black women, laughed as they kidnapped and physically, verbally, and racially abused the white victim. The incident was livestreamed on Facebook.
On May 25, 2020, George Floyd, a 46-year-old black American man, was murdered in Minneapolis by Derek Chauvin, a 44-year-old white police officer. Floyd had been arrested after a store clerk reported that he made a purchase using a counterfeit $20 bill. Chauvin knelt on Floyd's neck for over nine minutes while Floyd was handcuffed and lying face-down in a street. Two other police officers, J. Alexander Kueng and Thomas Lane, assisted Chauvin in restraining Floyd. Lane had also pointed a gun at Floyd's head before Floyd was handcuffed. A fourth police officer, Tou Thao, prevented bystanders from intervening.
Derek Michael Chauvin is an American former police officer who murdered George Floyd, a 46-year-old African-American man, in Minneapolis, Minnesota. On May 25, 2020, Chauvin knelt on Floyd's neck for about nine minutes while Floyd was handcuffed and lying face down on the street, calling out "I can't breathe," during an arrest made with three other officers. Chauvin was dismissed by the Minneapolis Police Department (MPD) on May 26 and arrested on May 29. The murder set off a series of protests in Minneapolis–Saint Paul, across the United States and around the world.
The George Floyd protests were a series of riots and demonstrations against police brutality that began in Minneapolis in the United States on May 26, 2020. The protests and civil unrest began in Minneapolis as reactions to the murder of George Floyd, a 46-year-old unarmed African American man, by city police during an arrest. They spread nationally and internationally. Veteran officer Derek Chauvin was recorded as kneeling on Floyd's neck for 9 minutes and 29 seconds; Floyd complained of not being able to breathe, but three other officers looked on and prevented passersby from intervening. Chauvin and the other three officers involved were later arrested. In April 2021, Chauvin was found guilty of second-degree murder, third-degree murder, and second-degree manslaughter. In June 2021, Chauvin was sentenced to 22+1⁄2 years in prison.
George Perry Floyd Jr. was an African American man who was murdered by a white police officer in Minneapolis, Minnesota, during an arrest made after a store clerk suspected Floyd might have used a counterfeit twenty-dollar bill, on May 25, 2020. Derek Chauvin, one of four police officers who arrived on the scene, knelt on Floyd's neck and back for 9 minutes and 29 seconds, fatally asphyxiating him. After his murder, a series of protests against police brutality, especially towards black people, quickly spread across the United States and globally. His dying words, "I can't breathe", became a rallying slogan.
State of Minnesota v. Derek Michael Chauvin was an American criminal case in the District Court of Minnesota in 2021. Former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin was tried and convicted for the murder of George Floyd, which occurred during an arrest on May 25, 2020, and led to global protests over racial injustice and police brutality. A 12-member jury found Chauvin guilty of unintentional second-degree murder, third-degree murder, and second-degree manslaughter. It was the first conviction of a white police officer in Minnesota for the murder of a black person.
Darnella Frazier is an American woman who recorded the murder of George Floyd on May 25, 2020, posting her video on Facebook and Instagram. The video undermined the initial account of Floyd's death by the Minneapolis Police Department, and served as evidence leading to criminal charges against four police officers. Frazier testified during the trial, which ended with the conviction of Derek Chauvin on murder charges, and the convictions of the other three officers on manslaughter. She received a special award and citation from the Pulitzer Prize board in 2021.
