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Record Sealing
Record sealing is the process of making public records inaccessible to the public. In many cases, a person with a sealed record gains the legal right to deny or not acknowledge anything to do with the arrest and the legal proceedings from the case itself. Records are commonly sealed in a number of situations: * Sealed birth records (typically after adoption or determination of paternity) *Juvenile criminal records may be sealed *Other types of cases involving juveniles may be sealed, anonymized, or pseudonymized ("impounded"); e.g., child sex offense or custody cases *Cases using witness protection information may be partly sealed *Cases involving trade secrets *Cases involving state secrets Filing under seal in US court Normally, records should not be filed under seal without a court permission. However, FRCP 5.2 requires that sensitive text – like Social Security number, Taxpayer Identification Number, birthday, bank accounts, and children’s names – should be redac ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Public Records
Public records are documents or pieces of information that are not considered confidential and generally pertain to the conduct of government. Depending on jurisdiction, examples of public records includes information pertaining to births, deaths, marriages, and documented transaction with government agencies. Attitudes and expectations about what information should be made public have been studied. History Since the earliest organised societies, with taxation, disputes, and so on, records of some sort have been needed. In ancient Babylon records were kept in cuneiform writing on clay tablets. In the Inca empire of South America, which did not have writing, records were kept via an elaborate form of knots in cords, quipu, whose meaning has been lost. In Western Europe in the Late Middle Ages public records included census records as well as records of birth, death, and marriage; an example is the 1086 ''Domesday Book'' of William the Conqueror. The details of royal marriage ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sealed Birth Records
Sealed birth records refers to the practice of sealing the original birth certificate upon adoption or legitimation, often making a copy of the record unavailable except by court order. Upon finalization of the adoption, the original birth certificate is sealed and replaced with an amended birth certificate declaring the adoptee to be the child of his or her adoptive parents, "as if" born to them. Many states, provinces and countries adopted this practice in the early to mid-20th century with the aim of protecting the adopted person from the shame of an illegitimate birth. Sealed or closed birth records are generally associated with closed adoption. Open records is generally referred to as the practice of opening original birth records to adult adoptees, and should not be confused with open adoption, which can occur with or without sealed records, depending on the laws of the state or province in which it is carried out. Many nations have granted adult adoptees unrestricted acces ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Adoption
Adoption is a process whereby a person assumes the parenting of another, usually a child, from that person's biological or legal parent or parents. Legal adoptions permanently transfer all rights and responsibilities, along with filiation, from the biological parents to the adoptive parents. Unlike guardianship or other systems designed for the care of the young, adoption is intended to effect a permanent change in status and as such requires societal recognition, either through legal or religious sanction. Historically, some societies have enacted specific laws governing adoption, while others used less formal means (notably contracts that specified inheritance rights and parental responsibilities without an accompanying transfer of filiation). Modern systems of adoption, arising in the 20th century, tend to be governed by comprehensive statutes and regulations. History Antiquity Adoption for the well-born While the modern form of adoption emerged in the United States, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Paternity (law)
Paternity law refers to body of law underlying legal relationship between a father and his biological or adopted children and deals with the rights and obligations of both the father and the child to each other as well as to others. A child's paternity may be relevant in relation to issues of legitimacy, inheritance and rights to a putative father's title or surname, as well as the biological father's rights to child custody in the case of separation or divorce and obligations for child support. Under common law, a child born to a married woman is presumed to be the child of her husband by virtue of a " presumption of paternity" or presumption of legitimacy. In consideration of a possible non-paternity event (which may or may not include paternity fraud) these presumptions may be rebutted by evidence to the contrary, for example, in disputed child custody and child support cases during divorce, annulment or legal separation. In the case of a father not married to a chil ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Witness Protection
Witness protection is security provided to a threatened person providing testimonial evidence to the justice system, including defendants and other clients, before, during, and after trials, usually by police. While witnesses may only require protection until the conclusion of a trial, in particularly extreme cases, some witnesses are provided with new identities and may live out the rest of their lives under government protection. Protection is typically needed when their safety is at risk due to the potential for retaliation. The program aims to ensure their safety and encourage them to cooperate with law enforcement by providing information that can help solve cases and bring criminals to justice. It is an important tool in maintaining the integrity of the justice system and protecting those who are willing to come forward with crucial information. Witness protection is usually required in trials against organized crime, where law enforcement sees a risk for witnesses to be ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Trade Secret
A trade secret is a form of intellectual property (IP) comprising confidential information that is not generally known or readily ascertainable, derives economic value from its secrecy, and is protected by reasonable efforts to maintain its confidentiality. Well-known examples include the Coca-Cola formula and the recipe for KFC Original Recipe, Kentucky Fried Chicken. Unlike other forms of IP, trade secrets do not require formal registration and can be protected indefinitely, as long as they remain undisclosed. Instead, Non-disclosure agreement, non-disclosure agreements (NDAs), among other measures, are commonly used to keep the information secret. Like other IP assets, trade secrets may be sold or licensed. Unauthorized acquisition, use, or disclosure of a trade secret by others in a manner contrary to honest commercial practices is considered misappropriation of the trade secret. If trade secret Misappropriation of assets, misappropriation happens, the trade secret holder ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Classified Information
Classified information is confidential material that a government deems to be sensitive information which must be protected from unauthorized disclosure that requires special handling and dissemination controls. Access is restricted by law or regulation to particular groups of individuals with the necessary security clearance with a need to know. A formal security clearance is required to view or handle classified material. The clearance process requires a satisfactory background investigation. Documents and other information must be properly marked "by the author" with one of several (hierarchical) levels of sensitivity—e.g. Confidential (C), Secret (S), and Top Secret (S). All classified documents require designation markings on the technical file which is usually located either on the cover sheet, header and footer of page. The choice of level is based on an impact assessment; governments have their own criteria, including how to determine the classification of an inf ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Federal Rules Of Civil Procedure
The Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (officially abbreviated Fed. R. Civ. P.; colloquially FRCP) govern civil procedure in United States district courts. They are the companion to the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure. Rules promulgated by the United States Supreme Court pursuant to the Rules Enabling Act become part of the FRCP unless, within seven months, the United States Congress acts to veto them. The Court's modifications to the rules are usually based upon recommendations from the Judicial Conference of the United States, the federal judiciary's internal policy-making body. At the time (1934) was adopted, federal courts were generally required to follow the procedural rules of the states in which they sat, but they were free to apply federal common law in cases not governed by a state constitution or state statute. Whether within the intent of Congress or not when adopting 28 U.S.C. 724 (1934), the situation was effectively reversed in 1938, the year the Federal Rul ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Court Clerk
A court clerk (British English: clerk to the court or clerk of the court ; American English: clerk of the court or clerk of court ) is an officer of the court whose responsibilities include maintaining records of a court and administering oaths to witnesses, jurors, and grand jurors as well as performing some quasi- secretarial duties. The records management duties of a court clerk include the acceptance of documents for filing with the court to become part of the court's official records, preserving and protecting those records, providing the general public with access to those records, and maintaining the docket, register of actions, and/or minutes of the court which list all filings and events in each case. These duties are important because the availability of legal relief often depends upon the timely filing of documents before applicable deadlines. United Kingdom England and Wales In the magistrates' courts of England and Wales, where the bench will usually have no ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Expungement
In the common law legal system, an expungement or expunction proceeding, is a type of lawsuit in which an individual who has been arrested for or convicted of a crime seeks that the records of that earlier process be sealed or destroyed, making the records nonexistent or unavailable to the general public. If successful, the records are said to be "expunged". ''Black's Law Dictionary'' defines "expungement of record" as the "Process by which record of criminal conviction is destroyed or sealed from the state or Federal repository." While expungement deals with an underlying criminal record, it is a civil action in which the subject is the petitioner or plaintiff asking a court to declare that the records be expunged. A very real distinction exists between an expungement and a pardon. When an expungement is granted, the person whose record is expunged may, for most purposes, treat the event as if it never occurred. A pardon (also called "executive clemency") does not "erase" the eve ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Judicial Legal Terminology
The judiciary (also known as the judicial system, judicature, judicial branch, judiciative branch, and court or judiciary system) is the system of courts that adjudicates legal disputes/disagreements and interprets, defends, and applies the law in legal cases. Meaning The judiciary is the system of courts that interprets, defends, and applies the law in the name of the state. The judiciary can also be thought of as the mechanism for the resolution of disputes. Under the doctrine of the separation of powers, the judiciary generally does not make statutory law (which is the responsibility of the legislature) or enforce law (which is the responsibility of the executive), but rather interprets, defends, and applies the law to the facts of each case. However, in some countries the judiciary does make common law. In many jurisdictions the judicial branch has the power to change laws through the process of judicial review. Courts with judicial review power may annul the laws and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Legal Procedure
Procedural law, adjective law, in some jurisdictions referred to as remedial law, or rules of court, comprises the rules by which a court hears and determines what happens in civil, lawsuit, criminal or administrative proceedings. The rules are designed to ensure a fair and consistent application of due process (in the U.S.) or fundamental justice (in other common law countries) to all cases that come before a court. Substantive law, which refers to the actual claim and defense whose validity is tested through the procedures of procedural law, is different from procedural law. In the context of procedural law, procedural rights may also refer not exhaustively to rights to information, access to justice, and right to counsel, rights to public participation, and right to confront accusers, as well as the basic presumption of innocence (meaning the prosecution regularly must meet the burden of proof, although different jurisdictions have various exceptions), with those right ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
