Charles Peace was an English burglar and murderer, who embarked on a life of crime after being maimed in an industrial accident as a boy.
The Scottsboro Boys were nine African American teenage males accused in Alabama of raping two white women in 1931. The landmark set of legal cases from this incident dealt with racism and the right to a fair trial. The cases included a lynch mob before the suspects had been indicted, all-white juries, rushed trials, and disruptive mobs. It is commonly cited as an example of a legal injustice in the United States legal system.
Murder One is an American legal drama television series that aired on ABC in the United States from September 19, 1995, until May 29, 1997. The series was created by Steven Bochco, Charles H. Eglee, and Channing Gibson.
Brian Gene Nichols is an accused rapist and convicted murderer known for his escape and killing spree in the Fulton County Courthouse in Atlanta, Georgia, on March 11, 2005. Nichols was on trial for rape when he escaped custody and murdered the judge presiding over his trial, a court reporter, a Fulton County Sheriff's deputy, and later an ICE special agent. Twenty-six hours after a large-scale manhunt was launched in the metropolitan Atlanta area, Nichols was taken into custody. The prosecution charged him with committing 54 crimes during the escape; he was found guilty on all counts on November 7, 2008 and was subsequently sentenced to life in prison.
The Jury is a British television serial broadcast in 2002. The series was the first ever to be allowed to film inside the historic Old Bailey courthouse.
The murder of 12-year-old Stephanie Crowe took place in her bedroom inside her home at Escondido, California, sometime between late night January 20, 1998, to early morning January 21, 1998. Stephanie's parents and grandmother found her body on the floor of her bedroom on the morning of January 21, 1998. She had been stabbed eight times. There was no sign of forced entry. Stephanie's window was found unlocked, but a screen was in place and there was no disturbance of accumulated grime and insect traces. A sliding glass door in her parents' bedroom was also unlocked. No knives were found at the scene that seemed consistent with the murder weapon, and no bloody clothing was found despite an exhaustive search.
Guin "Richie" Phillips was a gay man in Elizabethtown, Kentucky. Phillips disappeared on June 17, 2003. His body was found on June 25, 2003, in a suitcase in Rough River Lake.
Edward Sapiano was a Canadian defence lawyer, based in Toronto, Ontario, notable for his role in many high-profile criminal cases. He initiated Canada's largest criminal investigation of police, resulting in the arrest and prosecution of several Toronto police officers and was also involved in the so-called Toronto 18 terrorism trial. Edward Sapiano is also noted for demanding immediate DNA testing of his client shortly following the 1996 arrest of the suspected "North York serial rapist", leading to his client Jeremy Foster's full vindication, despite a false confession to the crime. In his quest to get illegal guns off the street, Sapiano also created the only lawyer-operated gun amnesty program available in North America, Piece Options. He is also known for starting a database of rulings and judgements to track alleged misconduct among Toronto-area officers which was then retrievable for cross-examinations in other cases by other lawyers. Edward Sapiano, after putting his practice on hold for two and a half years due to kidney failure, returned to court in 2017 for the Andrea White murder trial. Edward died on March 21, 2020, from complications of kidney disease and was cited to be the first lawyer in Canada to practise while undergoing 10 hours of daily dialysis. He was regularly featured by media outlets, including The Globe and Mail, CBC, and the New York Times commenting on criminal law issues.
Caylee Marie Anthony was an American toddler who lived in Orlando, Florida, with her mother, Casey Marie Anthony, and her maternal grandparents, George and Cindy Anthony. On July 15, 2008, she was reported missing in a 9-1-1 call made by Cindy, who said she had not seen Caylee for 31 days. According to what Cindy told the operators, Casey had given varied explanations as to Caylee's whereabouts before eventually saying she had not seen Caylee for weeks. Casey later called the police and falsely told a police dispatcher that Caylee had been kidnapped by a nanny on June 9. Casey was charged with first-degree murder in October 2008 and pled not guilty.
Adolph Louis Luetgert was a German-American businessman in Chicago, Illinois, convicted of murdering his second wife Louisa Bicknese in 1897 and dissolving her body in a sausage vat filled with lye at his A.L. Luetgert Sausage & Packing Company.
If Someone Had Known is a 1995 American crime drama television film based on a true story, directed by Eric Laneuville. It was released on Monday, May 1, 1995 on NBC.
Lemrick Nelson, Jr. is a Trinidadian man who stabbed Hasidic student Yankel Rosenbaum to death during the racial unrest of the 1991 Crown Heights riot. Though his lawyer did not deny at his trial that Nelson stabbed Rosenbaum, he argued that the killing had nothing to do with Rosenbaum's being Jewish.
The Lin family murders occurred in North Epping in the northwestern suburbs of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, on 18 July 2009. The victims were newsagency proprietor Min Lin; his wife, Yun Lin; their sons, Henry and Terry; and Yun Lin's sister, Irene Lin. The family was bludgeoned to death. Min Lin's sister, Kathy, discovered the bodies. Jun "Brenda" Lin, 15, was the only surviving immediate family member after the incident; she was on a school trip in New Caledonia with Cheltenham Girls High School at the time.
The Babes in the Wood Murders were the murders of two nine-year-old girls, Nicola Fellows and Karen Hadaway, on 9 October 1986, by a 20-year-old local roofer, Russell Bishop in Wild Park, Moulsecoomb, Brighton, Sussex, England. Bishop was tried and acquitted in 1987. The case remained open until 10 December 2018, when Bishop was found guilty of the murders in a second trial. The investigation into the two girls' murders is the largest and longest-running inquiry ever conducted by Sussex Police.
On November 23, 2012, Jordan Davis, a black 17-year-old high school student, was murdered at a Gate Petroleum gas station in Jacksonville, Florida, by Michael David Dunn, a white 45-year-old software developer, following an argument over loud music played by Davis and his three friends, in what was believed to be a racially motivated shooting.
Corey Miller, better known by his stage name C-Murder, is an American rapper. He initially gained fame in the mid-1990s as a part of his brother Master P's label No Limit Records, primarily as a member of the label's supergroup, TRU. Miller went on to release several solo albums of his own through the label, including 1998's platinum Life or Death. C-Murder has released nine albums altogether on six different labels, No Limit Records, TRU Records, Koch Records, Asylum Records, RBC Records, and Venti Uno.
On the night of September 6, 2018, 26-year-old accountant Botham Jean was murdered when off-duty Dallas Police Department patrol officer Amber Guyger entered Jean's apartment in Dallas, Texas, and fatally shot him. Guyger, who said that she had entered Jean's apartment believing it was her own and believed Jean to be a burglar, was initially charged with manslaughter. The absence of a murder charge led to protests and accusations of racial bias because Jean—an unarmed black man—was killed in his own home by a white off-duty officer who had apparently disregarded police protocols. On November 30, 2018, Guyger was indicted on a charge of murder. On October 1, 2019, she was found guilty of murder, and was sentenced to ten years' imprisonment the following day. The ruling was upheld on appeal in 2021.
On February 23, 2020, Ahmaud Arbery, a 25-year-old black man, was murdered during a racially motivated hate crime while jogging in Satilla Shores, a neighborhood near Brunswick in Glynn County, Georgia. Erroneously assuming he was a burglar, three white men pursued Arbery in their trucks for several minutes, using the vehicles to block his path as he tried to run away. Two of the men, Travis McMichael and his father, Gregory McMichael, were armed in one vehicle. Their neighbor, William "Roddie" Bryan, was in another vehicle. After overtaking Arbery, Travis McMichael exited his truck, pointing his weapon at Arbery. Arbery approached McMichael and a physical altercation ensued, resulting in McMichael fatally shooting Arbery. Bryan recorded this confrontation and Arbery's murder on his cell phone.
State of Minnesota v. Derek Michael Chauvin was an American criminal case in the District Court of Minnesota in which former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin was tried and convicted of the murder of George Floyd during an arrest on May 25, 2020. Chauvin was found guilty of unintentional second-degree murder, third-degree murder, and second-degree manslaughter; the first charge could have carried a maximum penalty of 40 years in prison. It was the first conviction of a white officer in Minnesota for the murder of a black person. On June 25, 2021, Chauvin was sentenced by the trial judge to 22+1⁄2 years in prison for second-degree murder, 10 years more than the sentencing guidelines of 12+1⁄2 years.
In 2020 and 2021, several protests were held in the U.S. city of Minneapolis that coincided with judicial proceedings and the criminal trial of Derek Chauvin. As an officer with the Minneapolis Police Department, Chauvin was charged with the murder of George Floyd, an unarmed African American man who died during an arrest incident on May 25, 2020. A bystander's video captured Chauvin kneeling on Floyd's neck for over nine minutes while Floyd struggled to breathe, lost consciousness, and died. Protesters opposed Chauvin's pre-trial release from jail on bail in October 2020. In the lead up to and during the criminal trial in early 2021, demonstrators sought conviction and maximum sentencing for Chauvin, and the enactment of police reform measures.
