Perjury is the intentional act of swearing a false oath or falsifying an affirmation to tell the truth, whether spoken or in writing, concerning matters material to an official proceeding.
A bill of attainder is an act of a legislature declaring a person, or a group of people, guilty of some crime, and providing for a punishment, often without a trial. As with attainder resulting from the normal judicial process, the effect of such a bill is to nullify the targeted person's civil rights, most notably the right to own property, the right to a title of nobility, and, in at least the original usage, the right to life itself.
The Comstock Act of 1873 is a series of current provisions in Federal law that generally criminalize the involvement of the United States Postal Service, its officers, or a common carrier in conveying obscene matter, crime-inciting matter, or certain abortion-related matter. The Comstock Act is largely codified across title 18 of the United States Code and was enacted beginning in 1872 with the attachment of a rider to the Post Office Consolidation Act of 1872. Amended multiple times since initial enactment, most recently in 1996, the Act is nonetheless often associated with U.S. Postal Inspector and anti-vice activist Anthony Comstock.
Extraterritorial jurisdiction (ETJ) is the legal ability of a government to exercise authority beyond its normal boundaries.
Megaupload Ltd was a Hong Kong–based online company established in 2005 that operated from 2005 to 2012 providing online services related to file storage and viewing.
An Act to protect the commerce of the United States and punish the crime of piracy is an 1819 United States federal statute against piracy, amended in 1820 to declare participating in the slave trade or robbing a ship to be piracy as well. The last execution for piracy in the United States was of slave trader Nathaniel Gordon in 1862 in New York, under the amended act.
Copyright infringement is the use of works protected by copyright without permission for a usage where such permission is required, thereby infringing certain exclusive rights granted to the copyright holder, such as the right to reproduce, distribute, display or perform the protected work, or to produce derivative works. The copyright holder is usually the work's creator, or a publisher or other business to whom copyright has been assigned. Copyright holders routinely invoke legal and technological measures to prevent and penalize copyright infringement.
Samuel Rossiter Betts was an American attorney, politician, and jurist who served as a United States representative from New York and a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York.
Abduwali Abdulkadir Muse is a Somali pirate. He is the sole survivor of four pirates who hijacked the MV Maersk Alabama in April 2009 and then held Captain Richard Phillips for ransom. On 16 February 2011, Muse was convicted and sentenced to 33 years and 9 months in U.S. federal prison.
United States v. Smith could refer to:
The Antelope, 23 U.S. 66 (1825), was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States considered, for the first time, the legitimacy of the international slave trade, and determined "that possession on board of a vessel was evidence of property".
The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) was a proposed United States congressional bill to expand the ability of U.S. law enforcement to combat online copyright infringement and online trafficking in counterfeit goods. Introduced on October 26, 2011, by Representative Lamar Smith (R-TX), provisions included the requesting of court orders to bar advertising networks and payment facilities from conducting business with infringing websites, and search engines from linking to the websites, and court orders requiring Internet service providers to block access to the websites. The proposed law would have expanded existing criminal laws to include unauthorized streaming of copyrighted content, imposing a maximum penalty of five years in prison.
The Marshall Court (1801–1835) heard forty-one criminal law cases, slightly more than one per year. Among such cases are United States v. Simms (1803), United States v. More (1805), Ex parte Bollman (1807), United States v. Hudson (1812), Cohens v. Virginia (1821), United States v. Perez (1824), Worcester v. Georgia (1832), and United States v. Wilson (1833).
United States v. Furlong, 18 U.S. 184 (1820), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the court held that felonies committed in international waters must be specifically defined by Congress, and the Offenses Clause is broad enough that Congress may criminalize offenses on U.S. ships anchored in foreign ports. Essentially, United States v. Furlong made a distinction between international and national jurisdiction. When international law applies, the first state to prosecute "uses up" the international law, rendering subsequent prosecutions impossible. However, the prohibition against double jeopardy does not apply if two states have overlapping national jurisdiction and both decide to prosecute.
The Taney Court heard thirty criminal law cases, approximately one per year. Notable cases include Prigg v. Pennsylvania (1842), United States v. Rogers (1846), Ableman v. Booth (1858), Ex parte Vallandigham (1861), and United States v. Jackalow (1862).
The Crimes Act of 1790, formally titled An Act for the Punishment of Certain Crimes Against the United States, defined some of the first federal crimes in the United States and expanded on the criminal procedure provisions of the Judiciary Act of 1789. The Crimes Act was a "comprehensive statute defining an impressive variety of federal crimes".
The Crimes Act of 1825, formally titled An Act more effectually to provide for the punishment of certain crimes against the United States, and for other purposes, was the first piece of omnibus federal criminal legislation since the Crimes Act of 1790. In general, the 1825 act provided more punishment than the 1790 act. The maximum authorized sentence of imprisonment was increased from 7 to 10 years; the maximum fine from $5,000 to $10,000. But, the punishments of stripes and pillory were not provided for.
In keeping with the Paris Principles definition of a child soldier, the Roméo Dallaire Child Soldiers Initiative defines a child pirate as any person below 18 years of age who is or who has been recruited or used by a pirate gang in any capacity, including children – boys and/or girls – used as gunmen in boarding parties, hostage guards, negotiators, ship captains, messengers, spies or for sexual purposes, whether at sea or on land. It does not only refer to a child who is taking or has taken a direct part in kinetic criminal operations.
Goldstein v. California, 412 U.S. 546 (1973), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the high court ruled that California's state statutes criminalizing record piracy did not violate the Copyright Clause of the United States Constitution.
International piracy law is international law that is meant to protect against piracy. Throughout history and legal precedents, pirates have been defined as hostis humani generis, Latin for "the enemy of all mankind". The United Nations has codified much of the law in the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), which defines different types of piracy and ways to combat it.
