Documents for "Legal Terms and Concepts":

• abandonment in law, voluntary, intentional, and absolute relinquishment of rights or property without conveying them to any other person. Abandonment also means willfully leaving one's spouse or children,...

• abstract of title in law, brief history of the title to a piece of land. An account is given of recorded documents, court proceedings, wills , mortgages , taxes, previous sales, easements , and all other factors that at any time affected the ownership or use of the land. The old rule in England required that an abstract of title should cover the 60 years before the proposed sale. In...

• acknowledgment in law, formal declaration or admission by a person who executed an instrument (e.g., a will or a deed) that the instrument is his. The acknowledgment is made before a court, a notary public, or...

• act of God in law, an accident caused by the operation of extraordinary natural force. The effect of ordinary natural causes (e.g., that rain will leak through a defective roof) may be foreseen and avoided by...

• action in law: see procedure.

• adoption act by which the legal relation of parent and child is created. Adoption was recognized by Roman law but not by common law. Statutes first introduced adoption into U.S. law in the mid-19th cent., and today it is allowed in all states of the United States and in Great Britain. Adoption is generally a judicial...

• advocate see attorney.

• age of consent the age at which, according to the law, persons are bound by their words and acts. There are different ages at which one acquires legal capacity to consent to marriage, to choose a guardian, to...

• alien in law, any person residing in one political community while owing allegiance to another. A procedure known as naturalization permits aliens to become citizens.

• alienation in property laws: see tenure.

• alimony in law, allowance for support that an individual pays to his or her former spouse, usually as part of a divorce settlement. It is based on the common law right of a wife to be supported by her husband, but in the United States, the Supreme Court in 1979 removed its limitation to husbands, to account for cases in which the wife is wealthier. Alimony...

• amendment in law, alteration of the provisions of a legal document. The term usually refers to the alteration of a statute or a constitution , but it is also applied in parliamentary law to proposed changes to a bill or motion under consideration, and in judicial procedure to the correction of errors. A statute may be amended by the passage of an act that is identified specifically as an amendment to it or by a new statute that renders some of its provisions...

• Americans with Disabilities Act U.S. civil-rights law, enacted 1990, that forbids discrimination of various sorts against persons with physical or mental handicaps. Its primary emphasis is on enabling these persons to enter the job market and...

• amnesty in law, exemption from prosecution for criminal action. It signifies forgiveness and the forgetting of past actions. Amnesties are usually extended to a group of persons during a period of...

• annulment of marriage see nullity of marriage.

• appeal in law, hearing by a superior court to consider correcting or reversing the judgment of an inferior court, because of errors allegedly committed by the inferior court. The party appealing the...

• assisted suicide see euthanasia.

• asylum extension of hospitality and protection to a fugitive and the place where such protection is offered. The use of temples and churches for this purpose in ancient and medieval times was known as sanctuary. In modern international law, the granting of asylum to refugees from other lands is the right of a state by virtue of its territorial sovereignty. A fugitive, however, has no right to demand...

• attorney agent put in place of another to manage particular affairs of the principal. An attorney in fact is an agent who conducts business under authority that is controlled and limited by a written...

• bail in law, procurement of release from prison of a person awaiting trial or an appeal, by the deposit of security to insure his submission at the required time to legal authority. The monetary value...

• banishment see exile.

• bankruptcy in law, settlement of the liabilities of a person or organization wholly or partially unable to meet financial obligations. The purposes are to distribute, through a court-appointed receiver, the...

• bar, the originally, the rail that enclosed the judge in a court; hence, a court or a system of courts. The persons qualified and authorized to conduct the trial of cases are also known collectively as "the bar." From late medieval times in England the Inns of Court acted as training schools for men who were to plead causes in the courts, and when a student was judged to be trained in competence, he was "called to the bar" of the Inn; automatically he was then judged competent to plead at the bar of the courts. Modern bar associations, through which the legal profession regulates itself, derive from the Inns of Court. Attorneys must be admitted to the bar before they can practice law in the United States. The requirements for admission vary among the states, but generally an applicant must be of good moral character, have...

• barrister see attorney.

• bastard person born out of wedlock whose legal status is illegitimacy. In civil law countries and in about half the states of the United States, the union of the parents in marriage after birth makes the child legitimate. It is presumed that any child born to a married woman, or...

• battle, wager of see ordeal.

• benefit of clergy term originally applied to the exemption of Christian clerics from criminal prosecution in the secular courts. The privilege was established by the 12th cent., and it extended only to the...

• bequest see legacy.

• Bern Convention see copyright.

• censorship official prohibition or restriction of any type of expression believed to threaten the political, social, or moral order. It may be imposed by governmental authority, local or national, by a...

• chattel in law, any property other than a freehold estate in land (see tenure ). A chattel is treated as personal property rather than real property regardless of whether it is movable or immovable (see property...

• class action in law, a device that permits one or more persons to sue or be sued as representative of a large group of people interested in the matter at issue. The court in whose jurisdiction a suit is brought...

• clergy, benefit of see benefit of clergy.

• code in law, in its widest sense any body of legal rules expressed in fixed and authoritative written form. A statute thus may be termed a code. Codes contrast with customary law (including common law ), which is susceptible of various nonbinding formulations, as in the legal opinions of judges. The earliest codes (e.g., the Roman Twelve Tables ) met the popular demand that oral regulations be written down so that legal chicanery might be prevented. In later Roman law, however, the term code acquired its modern meaning of a precisely formulated statement of the principles underlying some branch of law (e.g., contracts) or an entire legal system. One of the greatest codes was the Roman Corpus Juris Civilis. In Europe, in the late 18th cent., after the general adoption of civil law by the continental countries, jurists asserted that similar codes were needed, and the parent modern European codification, the Code Napoléon , appeared (1804) and was followed by many others. The civil law code is an attempt to determine in advance what legal exigencies will arise and to furnish the means for meeting them. Basic legal...

• common-law marriage see under husband and wife.

• commutation of sentence in criminal law, reduction of a sentence for a criminal act by action of the executive head of the government. Like pardon , commutation of sentence is a matter of grace, not of right; it is distinguished from pardon, however, in that the conviction of crime is not nullified. The commutation, hence, may be granted on...

• composition in ancient and medieval law, a sum of money paid by a guilty party as satisfaction to the family of the person who was injured or killed. Failure to make the payment might justify retaliation in...

• compurgation in medieval law, a complete defense. A defendant could establish his innocence or nonliability by taking an oath and by getting a required number of persons to swear they believed his oath...

• conflict of laws that part of the law in each state, country, or other jurisdiction that determines whether, in dealing with a particular legal situation, its law or the law of some other jurisdiction will be...

• consent in law, active acquiescence or silent compliance by a person legally capable of consenting (see age of consent ). It may be evidenced by words or acts or by silence when silence implies concurrence....

• consideration in law: see contract.

• contempt in law, interference with the functioning of a legislature or court. In its narrow and more usual sense, contempt refers to the despising of the authority, justice, or dignity of a court. A contempt of court can be classified as civil or criminal, direct or constructive. Civil and criminal contempts are distinguished by the function of the punishment—if it is to vindicate judicial authority, the...

• contract in law, a promise, enforceable by law, to perform or to refrain from performing some specified act. In a general sense, all civil obligations fall under tort or contract law. Torts are usually characterized as violations of duties that are imposed on all persons and that have been established entirely by law. In contracts, on the other hand, the parties...

• copyright right granted by statute to the author or originator of certain literary, artistic, and musical productions whereby for a limited period of time he or she controls the use of the product. The work...

• coroner judicial officer responsible for investigating deaths occurring through violence or under suspicious circumstances. The office has been traced to the late 12th cent. Originally the coroner's...

• corporation in law, organization enjoying legal personality for the purpose of carrying on certain activities. Most corporations are businesses for profit; they are usually organized by three or more...

• costs, legal see damages.

• counselor at law see attorney.

• court in law, official body charged with administering justice. The term is also applied to the judge or judges who fill the office and to the courtroom itself. Courts come into existence when legal...

• cross-examination see evidence.

• crucifixion hanging on a cross , in ancient times a method of capital punishment. It was practiced widely in the Middle East but not by the Greeks. The Romans, who may have borrowed it from Carthage, reserved it for slaves and despised malefactors. They used it frequently, as...

• curfew [O.Fr.,=cover fire], originally a signal, such as the ringing of a bell, to damp the fire, extinguish all lights in the dwelling, and retire for the night. The custom originated as a precaution...

• damages money award that the judgment of a court requires the defendant in a suit to pay to the plaintiff as compensation for the loss or injury inflicted. Damages are the form of legal redress most...

• decree in law, decision of a suit in a court of equity. It is the counterpart in equity of the judgment in a court of law, although in those jurisdictions where law and equity have merged, judgment is sometimes used to include both. The difference between the two, however, is fundamental. A judgment...

• deed in law, written document that is signed and delivered by which one person conveys land or other realty (see property ) to another. A deed may assure the extent of the conveying party's ownership or, if the party is uncertain of the precise extent, he issues a quitclaim (i.e., a sale), without description, of...

• discovery in law: see procedure ; evidence.

• divorce partial or total dissolution of a marriage by the judgment of a court. Partial dissolution is a divorce "from bed and board," a decree of judicial separation , leaving the parties officially married while forbidding cohabitation. Total dissolution of the bonds of a valid marriage is what is now generally meant by divorce. It is to be distinguished from a...

• domestic relations For psychological and sociological aspects, see marriage. For legal aspects, see divorce ; husband and wife ; parent and child.

• domicile one's legal residence. This may or may not be the place where one actually resides at any one time. The domicile is the permanent home to which one is presumed to have the intention of returning...

• double jeopardy see jeopardy.

• dower that portion of a deceased husband's real property that a widow is legally entitled to use during her lifetime to support herself and their children. A wife may claim the dower if her husband dies without a will or if she dissents from the will. At...

• dowry the property that a woman brings to her husband at the time of the marriage. The dowry apparently originated in the giving of a marriage gift by the family of the bridegroom to the bride and the...

• due process of law see Fourteenth Amendment.

• duress in law, actual or threatened violence or imprisonment, by reason of which a person is forced to enter into an agreement or to perform some other act against his will. The constraint or threat of...

• easement in law, the right to use the land of another for a specified purpose, as distinguished from the right to possess that land. If the easement benefits the holder personally and is not associated with...

• enemy alien see alien.

• entail in law, restriction of inheritance to a limited class of descendants for at least several generations. The object of entail is to preserve large estates in land from the disintegration that is...

• equal-time rule a Federal Communications Commission rule that requires equal air time for all major candidates competing for political office. It was preceded by the fairness doctrine, abolished in 1987, which required radio and television...

• error in law: see appeal.

• estate 1 In property law, see property ; tenure. 2 In constitutional law, an estate denotes an organized class of society with a separate voice in government. Representation by estate arose in Europe in the 13th cent. when the feudal system was...

• evidence in law, material submitted to a judge or a judicial body to resolve disputed questions of fact. The rules discussed in this article were developed in England for use in jury trials. Today, they are generally observed in all countries having the common law , although they have been extensively modified by statute in some jurisdictions. The first juries were not neutral triers of fact; rather they were convened because of their immediate knowledge of...

• executors and administrators An executor is the person designated in the will of a deceased person to carry out the provisions of the will. An administrator is the person appointed by a probate court to perform the identical functions if the will does not name any executors...

• fairness doctrine see equal-time rule.

• fiduciary in law, a person who is obliged to discharge faithfully a responsibility of trust toward another. Among the common fiduciary relationships are guardian to ward, parent to child, lawyer to client,...

• finder in law. Ordinarily the finder of lost property is entitled to retain it against anyone except the owner. It is larceny , however, for the finder to keep the property if he knows or can easily determine who owns it. In some places the finder must deliver the lost object to the police; if it is unclaimed within a...

• fine 1 In criminal law, sum of money exacted by a lawful tribunal as punishment for a crime. In the case of misdemeanors and minor infractions of the law, convicted persons ordinarily have the alternative...

• forensic medicine see medical jurisprudence.

• Fourteenth Amendment addition to the U.S. Constitution, adopted 1868. The amendment comprises five sections.

• Frauds, Statute of basis of most modern laws requiring that certain promises must be in writing in order to be enforceable; it was passed by the English Parliament in 1677. In the United States, although state laws...

• Freedom of Information Act (1966), law requiring that U.S. government agencies release their records to the public on request, unless the information sought falls into a category specifically exempted, such as national...

• freehold see tenure.

• garnishment in law, means of requiring a third party who holds a debt (including wages) due a defendant to retain the property temporarily. The garnishment consists of a warning, in the form of a judgment , to...

• gavelkind [M.E.,=family tenure], custom of inheritance of lands held in socage tenure , whereby all the sons of a holder of an estate in land share equally in such lands upon the death of the father. Most of the lands in England were held in gavelkind tenure prior to the Norman...

• gift in law, voluntary transfer of property from one person to another without any compensation for it and without any obligation of an agreement or contract. The one who gives is the donor; the one who...

• grand jury in law, body of persons selected to inquire into crimes committed within a certain jurisdiction. It usually comprises a greater number than the trial, or petit (also, petty) jury, having since early common law days had between 12 and 23 members. In the United States, federal grand juries have between 16 and 23 jurors. The grand jury receives complaints and accusations in criminal cases, hears evidence...

• Gray's Inn see Inns of Court.

• Griswold v. Connecticut case decided in 1965 by the U.S. Supreme Court, establishing a right to privacy in striking down a Connecticut ban on the sale of contraceptives. The Court, through Justice William O. Douglas , found...

• guardian and ward in law. A guardian is someone who by appointment or by relationship has the care of a person or that person's property, or both. The protected individual, known as the ward, is considered legally...

• habeas corpus [Lat.,=you should have the body], writ directed by a judge to some person who is detaining another, commanding him to bring the body of the person in his custody at a specified time to a specified place for a specified purpose. The...

• hearsay see evidence.

• heir person designated by law to succeed to the ownership of property of another if that owner does not make a contrary disposition of it by will. A person who takes property left to him by will is not an heir but a legatee. The property that the heir receives is his inheritance. Originally the common law confined the term heir to an inheritor of real estate; the persons to whom the personal property of the deceased went were called the next of kin. The group of heirs of a person may differ from the group that the law...

• husband and wife the legal aspects of the married state (for the sociological aspects, see marriage ).

• illegitimacy see bastard.

• indeterminate sentence see parole ; sentence.

• indictment in criminal law , formal written accusation naming specific persons and crimes. Persons suspected of crime may be rendered liable to trial by indictment, by presentment, or by information. An indictment is issued...

• information in law: see indictment.

• inheritance in law: see heir.

• injunction in law, order of a court directing a party to perform a certain act or to refrain from an act or acts. The injunction, which developed as the main remedy in equity , is used especially where money...

• Inner Temple see Inns of Court and Temple, the.

• Inns of Court collective name of the four legal societies in London that have the exclusive right of admission to the bar. These societies—Lincoln's Inn, Gray's Inn, the Inner Temple, and the Middle Temple (see also Temple, the )—date from before the 14th cent. They take their name from the buildings where originally schools of law were held, apprentice lawyers gathering to learn from masters of law, much as in guild...

• inquest in law, a body of men appointed by law to inquire into certain matters. The term also refers to the inquiry itself as well as to the findings of the inquiry. The most usual form of inquest today is...

• insanity mental disorder of such severity as to render its victim incapable of managing his affairs or of conforming to social standards. Today, the term insanity is used chiefly in criminal law, to denote...

• jeopardy in law, condition of a person charged with a crime and thus in danger of punishment. At common law a defendant could be exposed to jeopardy for the same offense only once; exposing a person twice is known as double jeopardy. Double jeopardy is prohibited in federal and state courts by the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution. The concept refers to an offense, not to an act giving rise to an offense;...

• judgment decision of a court of law respecting the issues before it. The term ordinarily is not applied to the decree (order) of courts of equity. The outstanding characteristic of a legal judgment, in contrast to an equitable decree, is its finality and fixity; thus, except for error justifying an appeal , the judgment may not be reconsidered (see jeopardy ). The judgment, which in most cases of consequence follows the verdict of a jury , is the determination of the judge that the defendant is guilty or innocent of the alleged offense. If the judgment is one of criminal guilt, the court proceeds to impose sentence. In civil cases, when judgment is for the plaintiff, the court usually awards a sum as damages. The damages thereupon constitute a debt that takes priority over all other obligations of the defendant except taxes and previous judgments. If the debtor fails to pay, the sheriff, to execute the...

• jurisprudence study of the nature and the origin and development of law. It is variously regarded as a branch of ethics or of sociology. Many of the major systematic philosophers (e.g., Aristotle, St. Thomas Aquinas, and Kant) have expounded jurisprudential theories...

• jury body convened to make decisions of fact in legal proceedings.

• land in law, any ground, soil, or earth regarded as the subject of ownership, including trees, water, buildings added by humans, the air above, and the earth below. Private ownership of land does not...

• land tenure see tenure , in law.

• lawsuit see procedure ; tort.

• legacy bequest by will of personal property , similar in many respects to a gift causa mortis. A legacy ordinarily is distinguished from a devise, which transfers real property by will. The person who receives a legacy is called a legatee. Legacies are of various types. A specific legacy...

• legislative apportionment subdivision of a political body (e.g., a state or province) for the purpose of electing legislative representatives. In the United States, the Constitution requires that Congressional...

• legitimation act of giving the status of legitimacy to a child whose parents were not married at the time the child was born. This is generally accomplished by the subsequent marriage of the parents. Under the...

• liability in law, an obligation of one party to another, usually to compensate financially. It is a fundamental aspect of tort law, although liability may also arise from duties entered into by special agreement, as in a contract or in the carrying out of a fiduciary duty. Liability is not always the result of an intentionally damaging act or of some proven fault like negligence. The affixing of liability may once have been simply a peace-preserving alternative to the practice of an injured party taking vengeance. Further, the law's emphasis has long been that one who is...

• libel and slander in law, types of defamation. In common law , written defamation was libel and spoken defamation was slander. Today, however, there are no such clear definitions. Permanent forms of defamation, such as the written or pictorial, are usually...

• license in public law, permission by legal authority to engage in certain acts and also the document showing such permission. Some licenses are required for the protection of the public; they assure...

• lien claim or charge held by one party, on property owned by a second party, as security for payment of some debt, obligation, or duty owed by that second party. A lien may arise by agreement between...

• Lincoln's Inn see Inns of Court.

• lost property see finder.

• lunacy see insanity.

• malpractice failure to provide professional services with the skill usually exhibited by responsible and careful members of the profession, resulting in injury, loss, or damage to the party contracting those...

• mandamus [Lat.,=we order], in law, writ directing the performance of ministerial acts. A ministerial act is one that a person or body is obliged by law to perform under given circumstances; e.g., on receipt of the fee, a license clerk...

• medical jurisprudence or forensic medicine, the application of medical science to legal problems. It is typically involved in cases concerning blood relationship, mental illness, injury, or death resulting from violence. Autopsy (see post-mortem examination ) is often used to determine the cause of death, particularly in cases where foul play is suspected. Post-mortem examination can determine not only the immediate agent of death (e.g. gunshot wound,...

• mental illness, legal see insanity.

• Middle Temple see Inns of Court ; Temple, the.

• mortgage in law, device for protecting a creditor by giving him an interest in property of his debtor. In common law a mortgage was a conditional sale; i.e., the mortgagor (debtor) sold realty (real property mortgage) or personal property (chattel mortgage), but if the debtor paid the debt by a certain time the...

• mortmain [Fr.,=dead hand], ownership of land by a perpetual corporation. The term originally denoted tenure (see tenure , in law) by a religious corporation, but today it includes ownership by charitable and business corporations. In the Middle Ages the church acquired, by purchase and gift, an enormous amount of...

• negligence in law, especially tort law, the breach of an obligation (duty) to act with care, or the failure to act as a reasonable and prudent person would under similar circumstances. For a plaintiff to recover damages , this action or failure must be the "proximate cause" of an injury, and actual loss must occur. Among possible defenses to a negligence action are that the plaintiff assumed the risk of injury (e.g., of being hit by a batted ball at a baseball game),...

• nuisance in law, an act that, without legal justification, interferes with safety, comfort, or the use of property. A private nuisance (e.g., erecting a wall that shuts off a neighbor's light) is one that...

• nullity of marriage in law, an unlawful marriage that is either void or voidable because of conditions existing at the time of the marriage. A bigamous or incestuous marriage, for example, is void, and there is no...

• obscenity in law, anything that tends to corrupt public morals by its indecency. The moral concepts that the term connotes vary from time to time and from place to place. In the United States, the word obscenity is a technical legal term. In the 1950s the U.S. Supreme Court began to relax rules prohibiting the possession, sale, and distribution of obscene material, often called pornography, but in 1973...

• ordeal ancient legal custom whereby an accused person was required to perform a test, the outcome of which decided the person's guilt or innocence. By an ordeal, appeal was made to divine authority to...

• orphan see adoption ; foundling hospital ; guardian and ward.

• pardon in law, exemption from punishment for a criminal conviction granted by the grace of the executive of a government. A general pardon to a class of persons guilty of the same offense (e.g.,...

• parent and child legal relationship, created by biological (birth) relationship or by adoption , that confers certain rights and duties on parent and child; in some states the courts have given the nonbiological, nonadoptive partner of a parent standing as a parent in a legal context. Parents...

• parole in criminal law, release from prison of a convict before the expiration of his term on condition that his activities be restricted and that he report regularly to an officer. The convict generally...

• patent in law, governmental grant of some privilege, property, or authority. Today patent refers to the granting to the inventor of a useful product or process the privilege to exclude others from making...

• Patriot Act see USA PATRIOT Act.

• perjury in criminal law, the act of willfully and knowingly stating a falsehood under oath or under affirmation in judicial or administrative proceedings. If the person accused of perjury had any probable...

• plea bargaining negotiation in which a defendant agrees to plead guilty to a criminal charge in exchange for concessions by the prosecutor (representing the state). The defendant waives the right to trial, losing...

• pleadings see procedure.

• police court court with jurisdiction limited to minor offenses, chiefly the least grave misdemeanors and breaches of municipal ordinances. In practice the trial is usually held before a judge sitting without a...

• police power in law, right of a government to make laws necessary for the health, morals, and welfare of the populace. The term has greatest currency in the United States, where it has been defined by the...

• Posse Comitatus Act 1878, U.S. federal law that makes it a crime to use the military as a domestic police force in the United States under most circumstances. The law was designed to end the use of federal troops to...

• presentment see indictment.

• Presidential Records Act see under Freedom of Information Act.

• primogeniture in law, the rule of inheritance whereby land descends to the oldest son. Under the feudal system of medieval Europe, primogeniture generally governed the inheritance of land held in military tenure...

• privacy, right of the right to be left alone without unwarranted intrusion by government, media, or other institutions or individuals. While a consensus supporting the right to privacy has emerged (all recently...

• probate in law, the certification by a court that a will is valid. Probate, which is governed by various statutes in the several states of the United States, is required before the will can take effect. The procedure requires that notification of a...

• probation method by which the punishment of a convicted offender is conditionally suspended. The offender must remain in the community and under the supervision of a probation officer, who is usually a...

• procedure in law, the rules that govern the obtaining of legal redress. This article deals only with civil procedure in Anglo-American law (for criminal procedure, see criminal law ). Except for evidence , procedure...

• process in law: see procedure.

• product liability see liability.

• proof in law: see evidence.

• public defender governmental official who represents indigent persons accused of crime. U.S. Supreme Court decisions expanding the right to counsel to pretrial proceedings and holding that a person cannot be...

• public domain in law, legal availability for public use, free of charge, of materials, processes, devices, skills, and plans that are not protected by copyright or patent, including those on which copyright or...

• quitclaim see deed.

• ransom price of redemption demanded by the captor of a person, vessel, or city. In ancient times cities frequently paid ransom to prevent their plundering by captors. The custom of ransoming was formerly...

• reapportionment see legislative apportionment.

• redistricting see legislative apportionment.

• rent in law, periodic payment by a tenant for the use of another's property. In economics, its meaning is more complex, but since the word rent means any income or yield from an object capable of producing wealth, its limitation to a more special sense is somewhat arbitrary and justified only by a general consensus of opinion and usage...

• reprieve in law, see pardon.

• res judicata see jeopardy.

• residence see domicile.

• restraining order see injunction.

• right of way in land and air traffic and in sea navigation, rules that determine precedence in the use of traffic lanes. The rules are framed in the simplest possible terms and with nearly absolute uniformity...

• riparian rights see water rights.

• sale in law, transfer of ownership in return for money. An exchange of goods for goods is termed barter, but the distinction between sale and barter is mainly technical; laws that govern one govern the...

• sanctuary sacred place, especially the most sacred part of a sacred place. In ancient times and in the Middle Ages, a sanctuary served as asylum , a place of refuge for persons fleeing from violence or from the penalties of the law. To injure a person in sanctuary or to remove him from it forcibly was considered sacrilege. In Egypt the...

• segregation see apartheid ; integration.

• sentence in criminal law, punishment that a court orders, imposed on a person convicted of criminal activity. Sentences typically consist of fines, corporal punishment , imprisonment for varying periods including...

• separation in law, either the voluntary agreement of husband and wife to live apart or a partial dissolution of the marriage relation by court order. The marriage bond remains, and remarriage of either party...

• service mark see trademark.

• sexual harassment in law, verbal or physical behavior of a sexual nature, aimed at a particular person or group of people, especially in the workplace or in academic or other institutional settings, that is...

• slander see libel and slander.

• socage see tenure.

• solicitor in English law, person duly admitted to practice before the supreme court of judicature. He is the agent of the person whose suit he handles, and is distinguished from a barrister, who argues cases...

• speech, freedom of liberty to speak and otherwise express oneself and one's opinions. Like freedom of the press (see press, freedom of the ), which pertains to the publication of speech, freedom of speech itself has been...

• statute in law, a formal, written enactment by the authorized powers of a state. The term is usually not applied to a written constitution but is restricted to the enactments of a legislature. Statute law is to be distinguished chiefly from common law , which may be defined as the body of legal rules derived from judicial decisions and custom. On most of the European continent all (or nearly all) the law is statutory and each field is subsumed by...

• Statute of Frauds see Frauds, Statute of.

• subpoena [Lat.,=under penalty], in law, an order to a witness to appear before a court. A subpoena ad testificandum [Lat.,= to testify under penalty], the technical term denoting an ordinary subpoena, is a...

• suit in law: see procedure.

• summons see procedure.

• sumptuary laws regulations based on social, religious, or moral grounds directed against overindulgence of luxury in diet and drink and extravagance in dress and mode of living. Such laws existed in ancient...

• sunset laws statutes that deal with the tendency of government agencies and programs to be self-perpetuating by providing for their periodic review.

• sunshine laws see Freedom of Information Act.

• swearing in law: see oath.

• Temple, the district of the City of London, England. The name refers to two of the four Inns of Court , the Middle Temple and the Inner Temple. The Temple was originally the English seat of the famous order of Knights Templars. The Inner Temple hall and library and the Temple Church—a Norman round...