Nix V. Williams Case Brief

21). Initially the district attorney was hesitant to prosecute Williams, feeling the evidence that the FBI had collected was too weak to obtain a conviction, but after Williams failed three polygraph tests administered by the FBI and multiple eyewitnesses emerged that confirmed that Williams was seen with several of the victims prior to their disappearance, the district attorney decided to indict Williams on the murders of Jimmy Payne and Nathan Cater. (trutv 25) The prosecution’s main evidence were fibers and dog hairs collected from the bodies of the victims that matched samples taken from Williams’s home. Ultimately, Williams was found guilty for the murders of the two men (Bardsley & Bell, n.d., p. 32), and was also linked to ten other “pattern killings” that were part of the spree (Bardsley & Bell, n.d., p. 28). Although he still claims that he is innocent of the murders, the Atlanta Child Murders came to an end after he was stopped on that bridge.

The city of Atlanta had experienced over a two year period from 1979-1981 of egregious acts of murders committed on more than twenty African American adolescent males. However, Wayne Williams, a native of Atlanta, was the center of law enforcement investigation, which implicated his involvement in at least two of the children murders around that time. Nonetheless, law enforcement linked Wayne Williams to those murders because of detailed evidence found on the victims, which was later discovered that evidence was from Williams apartment (Curriden, 1992). Furthermore, the evidence which was found was a unique fiber from the carpet of Williams apartment and the number of people having this fiber was very small in number (Curriden, 1992)). The fiber evidence was the main part of the case to associate Williams with

MILLERSBURG — A Killbuck man on Monday denied criminal charges he stole drugs while acting as a confidential informant working with the Holmes County Sheriff's Office.

Imagine being raped and no one can hear you scream for help. Imagine telling someone about the incident and no punishments were received. Meet Christy Brzonkala a freshman at Virginia Tech that was raped by two individuals. Ms. Brzonkala started off by going to state court to testify against Mr. Morrison and Mr. Crawford explaining to the judge and the people that those two gentlemen had sexual intercourse without giving them permission. Since the incident happened in Virginia, the case was held there and not in Pennsylvania. Mr. Morrison even admitted that he had sexual intercourse with her when she repeatedly stated “no”. The punishments Mr. Morrison and Mr. Crawford received were unacceptable and very disappointing. Mr. Morrison was only kicked out of the school and later was allowed to come back because of technical error that occurred. Mr. Crawford did not receive any punishment because he had an alibi, which resulted in him being innocent because there was not enough information on him. This led Ms. Bronzkala to go to federal court against Mr. Morrison and Virginia Tech because she claimed the school did not handle

Criminal profiling refers to the inference of offender characteristics. Historically, the use of criminal profiling can be traced back to 38 C.E. when Jews were wrongfully accused of blood libel, also known as the kidnapping and murdering the children of Christians for religious rituals during Jewish holidays (Turvey, 2012). As time progressed, criminal profiling has evolved into the study of crime and criminal behaviors, including mental health and physical evidence surrounding a crime that has been committed in an attempt to identify a likely suspect. However, the validity of scientific evidence as a whole was challenged in the 1993 Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, 509 U.S. 592. In this case, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the trial judge was the “gatekeeper” to prevent “junk science” from entering the courtroom and outlined standards, also known as Daubert standards, for expert testimony including, testing, peer review, error rates and acceptability (Turvey, 2012).

In the 1996 Supreme Court case Romer v. Evans, the voters of the state of Colorado approved a second amendment to their state Constitution through a referendum, in order to prevent homosexuals from becoming a protected minority. Before the referendum occurred, many of the major cities in Colorado passed laws prohibiting people to be discriminated against based on their sexuality, including whether or not they are homosexual. The citizens of Colorado who disapprove of homosexuality then created a petition to put the second amendment to a vote, and won with a majority of 53% of the votes. Richard Evans, with the support of many others, took the amendment to court claiming it was unconstitutional, and should be removed from the constitution,

The discovery of unethical billing alongside unethical accounting practices provoked a chain reaction towards a hospital accountant by the name of Rehberg. An accountant trying to serve justice was entangled in a web of lies. Rehberg vs. Paulk is a very interesting Supreme Court case. Rehberg vs. Paulk embodied much of the injustice that is not presented to the public when sworn officials break the very laws that are supposed to be protected. The Rehberg vs. Paulk case provides controversy among different jurisdictions within the judicial system and gives examples of the different elements of crime within the case.

Maryland, 482 U.S. 496 (1987), and South Carolina v. Gathers, 490 U.S. 805 (1989), that victim impact evidence according to the Eight Amendment is inadmissible during the penalty phase of a capital trial. Both cases were granted certiorari, 498 U.S. in 1991. After hearing the facts to the case and several testimonies’, the jury sentenced Payne to death on each of the murder counts. During the closing arguments, the court determined that the prosecutor’s comments were “relevant” to Payne’s personal responsibility and moral guilt. Booth and Gathers based their premises that evidence of “blameworthiness” is relevant in Capital sentencing opposed to the harm that is cause to the victim’s family. Furthermore, Booth held that if the defendants’ character or circumstances were directly related to the crime, then and only then should victim impact evidence be considered. Booth furthered his argument by stating that victim impact evidence imposed risks of Capital punishments if the victim impact evidence is not related in part to the character, or crime of the individual it is being imposed

Currently in the United States there are no federal laws relating to sexual assault. This is due to the court ruling of US v. Morrison which overturned the clauses in the Violence Against Women Act which allowed women to sue their attackers in a Federal court. The Supreme Court justified overturning these articles in the VAWA by saying that allowing women to sue in Federal court whether there was a conviction or not was an over reach on the part of the Federal government and the commerce clause. By doing this the Supreme Court limited the commerce clause in order to overturn the articles, which was one of the first time that the commerce clause had been limited since its

FACTS: In June 1966 a jury found defendant Stillman E. Wilbur, Jr., guilty of murder.

Challenging the way people thought of the law created a ripple effect that changed the judicial system as a whole. Although not every court case had immediate impact for the person being charged, the court cases provided documentation to help decide the fate of other convicted criminals down the road. These cases helped set precedent for other cases. Looking at Weems v. United States in 1910 , Weems received a sentence for falsifying two public documents, a case that had nothing to do with the death penalty; however, the trial would have astounding effects on death penalty cases in the future (Margulies, 2004). Weems received what was deemed to be a sentence of cruel and unusual punishment of “twelve years and one day hard labor, a chain

The decisions on presidential removal power reached by the Supreme Court in Myers v. The United States (1926) and Humphrey’s Executor v. The United States (1935) were inconsistent because in Myers, the Supreme Court struck down a legislative provision that restricted the authority of the president to remove executive branch officials without approval of the Senate, but in Humphrey’s, the ruling specified that the president was unauthorized to remove a member of an independent regulatory agency.

A contract is considered a legally binding agreement. A valid contract is an agreement that is binding and enforceable. A contract is not enforced if one of the parties involved has a lack of capacity. When lack of capacity is determiend a contract is voidable. A contract signed by a minor can be avoided because anyone under the age of 18 is a minor and minors are not legally capable of signing contracts. Since Alex signed the contract at the age of 16, it is not a binding contract.

Case note for Williams v Roffey Brothers & Nicholls (Contractors) Ltd [1991] 1 QB 1

Based on the charges, the court’s decision was thought through and grounded on strong reasoning, but the chargers as a whole were unfounded and relied on poor legal interpretation. In Hawkins V. McGee, Hawkins was guaranteed a 100 percent perfect hand, but instead ended up with a hairy hand, not at the fault of a breech on contract, but at the fault of unintentional negligence. McGee was an overly ambitious doctor working on skin grafting, which at the time was an extremely experimental procedure. During the surgery, the doctor removed the scared tissue from his hand and replaced it with grafted skin from his chest. Hawkins was told he would be out of work for about a week then he could go back to work with a good hand. In weeks following the procedure, Hawkins realized he had a good working hand, but one that was also hairy from the transplant of the follicles from his chest that came with the skin graft. In my opinion, whether or not Hawkins suffered is not up to debate, he was promised a perfect hand and ended up with a hairy hand, and almost everyone would agree that as a result he should be compensated for his loss. What is up for debate is what charges should be filed in order to get him that compensation.