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Williams V. Taylor (Terry Williams)
''Williams v. Taylor'', , was a United States Supreme Court case decided on April 18, 2000. It concerned a federal habeas corpus petition brought by convicted murderer Terry Williams, who alleged that he had received ineffective assistance of counsel in violation of the Supreme Court's prior decision in '' Strickland v. Washington''. The Supreme Court's decision in this case was split across two majority opinions, one authored by John Paul Stevens and joined by five other justices, and the other authored by Sandra Day O'Connor and joined by four other justices. Background Terry Williams was convicted of robbery and capital murder by a jury in September 1986, and after his subsequent sentencing hearing, the trial judge sentenced Williams to death. The Virginia Supreme Court affirmed his conviction and sentence in a 1987 decision. In 1988, Williams filed a collateral attack on his sentence in Danville Circuit Court. The same judge who oversaw Williams' trial and sentencing hearing h ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
United States Court Of Appeals For The Fourth Circuit
The United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit (in case citations, 4th Cir.) is a United States federal court, federal court located in Richmond, Virginia, with appellate jurisdiction over the United States district court, district courts in the following United States federal judicial district, districts: *United States District Court for the District of Maryland, District of Maryland *United States District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina, Eastern District of North Carolina *United States District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina, Middle District of North Carolina *United States District Court for the Western District of North Carolina, Western District of North Carolina *United States District Court for the District of South Carolina, District of South Carolina *United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Eastern District of Virginia *United States District Court for the Western District of Virginia, Western Dist ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Collateral Attack
''Res judicata'' or ''res iudicata'', also known as claim preclusion, is the Latin term for ''judged matter'', and refers to either of two concepts in common law civil procedure: a case in which there has been a final judgment and that is no longer subject to appeal; and the legal doctrine meant to bar (or preclude) relitigation of a claim between the same parties. In the case of ''res judicata'', the matter cannot be raised again, either in the same court or in a different court. A court will use ''res judicata'' to deny reconsideration of a matter. The doctrine of ''res judicata'' is a method of preventing injustice to the parties of a case supposedly finished but perhaps also or mostly a way of avoiding unnecessary waste of judicial resources. ''Res judicata'' does not merely prevent future judgments from contradicting earlier ones, but also prevents litigants from multiplying judgments. It is similar to the concept of double jeopardy and ''non bis in idem'' in criminal law, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Antiterrorism And Effective Death Penalty Act Case Law
Counterterrorism (alternatively spelled: counter-terrorism), also known as anti-terrorism, relates to the practices, military tactics, techniques, and strategies that governments, law enforcement, businesses, and intelligence agencies use to combat or eliminate terrorism and violent extremism. If an act of terrorism occurs as part of a broader insurgency (and insurgency is included in the definition of terrorism) then counterterrorism may additionally employ counterinsurgency measures. The United States Armed Forces uses the term "foreign internal defense" for programs that support other countries' attempts to suppress insurgency, lawlessness, or subversion, or to reduce the conditions under which threats to national security may develop. History The first counterterrorism body to be formed was the Special Irish Branch of the Metropolitan Police, later renamed the Special Branch after it expanded its scope beyond its original focus on Fenian terrorism. Various law enforcement ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sixth Amendment To The United States Constitution
The Sixth Amendment (Amendment VI) to the United States Constitution sets forth rights related to criminal prosecutions. It was ratified in 1791 as part of the United States Bill of Rights. The Supreme Court has applied all but one of this amendment's protections to the states through the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The Sixth Amendment guarantees criminal defendants eight different rights, including the right to a speedy and public trial by an impartial jury consisting of jurors from the state and district in which the crime was alleged to have been committed. Under the impartial jury requirement, jurors must be unbiased, and the jury must consist of a representative cross-section of the community. The right to a jury applies only to offenses in which the penalty is imprisonment for longer than six months. In '' Barker v. Wingo'', the Supreme Court articulated a balancing test to determine whether a defendant's right to a speedy trial had been violated. It ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Antiterrorism And Effective Death Penalty Act Of 1996
The Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA), , was introduced to the United States Congress in April 1995 as a Senate Bill (). The bill was passed with broad bipartisan support by Congress in response to the bombings of the World Trade Center and Oklahoma City. It was signed into law by President Bill Clinton. Controversial for its changes to the law of habeas corpus in the United States, the AEDPA also contained a number of provisions to "deter terrorism, provide justice for victims, provide for an effective death penalty, and for other purposes." Background On February 10, 1995, Senator Joe Biden introduced the Omnibus Counterterrorism Act of 1995 to the United States Senate. Just as with its successor, the omnibus bill was introduced on behalf of the Clinton Administration. In the two months that the bill was debated in the Senate, little progress was made towards passage. Following the Oklahoma City bombing on April 19, 1995, a new antiterrorism ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Virginia Circuit Court
The Virginia Circuit Courts are the state trial courts of general jurisdiction in the Commonwealth of Virginia. The Circuit Courts have jurisdiction to hear civil and criminal cases. For civil cases, the courts have authority to try cases with an amount in controversy of more than $4,500 and have exclusive original jurisdiction over claims for more than $25,000. In criminal matters, the Circuit Courts are the trial courts for all felony charges and for misdemeanors originally charged there. The Circuit Courts also have appellate jurisdiction for any case from the Virginia General District Courts (the trial courts of limited jurisdiction in Virginia) claiming more than $50, which are tried ''de novo'' in the Circuit Courts. The state has 120 courts divided among 31 judicial circuits. Judges of the Virginia Circuit Courts are appointed by the legislature, and serve an eight-year term, after which they may be reappointed. The only mandatory qualification for appointment as a Cir ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Danville, Virginia
Danville is an independent city (United States), independent city in the Virginia, Commonwealth of Virginia in the United States. The city is located in the Southside (Virginia), Southside Virginia region and on the fall line of the Dan River (Virginia), Dan River. The city was a center of Tobacco in the United States, tobacco production and was an area of Confederate activity during the American Civil War, due to its strategic location on the Richmond and Danville Railroad. In April 1865, Danville briefly served as the third and final capital of the Confederate States of America, Confederacy before its surrender later that year. Danville has maintained an African American majority population since the Reconstruction era. During this time, the city was represented politically by African American members of the Readjuster Party. However, this changed following the Danville Massacre of 1883, after which Democrats regained control both locally and statewide. Decades later, during ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Virginia Supreme Court
The Supreme Court of Virginia is the highest court in the Commonwealth of Virginia. It primarily hears direct appeals in civil cases from the trial-level city and county circuit courts, as well as the criminal law, family law and administrative law cases that are initially appealed to the Court of Appeals of Virginia. Established in 1779 as the Supreme Court of Appeals, the Supreme Court of Virginia is one of the oldest continuously active judicial bodies in the United States. History of the Supreme Court of Virginia Colony of Virginia The Supreme Court of Virginia has its roots in the seventeenth century English legal system, which was instituted in Virginia as part of the Charter of 1606 under which Jamestown, Virginia, the first permanent English settlement in North America, was established. In 1623, the Virginia House of Burgesses created a five-member appellate court, which met quarterly to hear appeals from the lower courts. Meeting on the first day of March, Jun ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
United States Supreme Court
The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that turn on questions of U.S. constitutional or federal law. It also has original jurisdiction over a narrow range of cases, specifically "all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, and those in which a State shall be Party." In 1803, the Court asserted itself the power of judicial review, the ability to invalidate a statute for violating a provision of the Constitution via the landmark case '' Marbury v. Madison''. It is also able to strike down presidential directives for violating either the Constitution or statutory law. Under Article Three of the United States Constitution, the composition and procedures of the Supreme Court were originally established by the 1st Congress through the Judiciary Act of 1789. As it has si ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Capital Murder
Capital murder refers to a category of murder in some parts of the US for which the perpetrator is eligible for the death penalty. In its original sense, capital murder was a statutory offence of aggravated murder in Great Britain, Northern Ireland, and the Republic of Ireland, which was later adopted as a legal provision to define certain forms of aggravated murder in the United States. Some jurisdictions that provide for death as a possible punishment for murder, such as California, do not have a specific statute creating or defining a crime known as capital murder; instead, death is one of the possible sentences for certain kinds of murder. In these cases, "capital murder" is not a phrase used in the legal system but may still be used by others such as the media. Great Britain In Great Britain, this offence was created by section 5 of the Homicide Act 1957. Previously all murders carried the death penalty on conviction, but the 1957 Act limited the death penalty to the follow ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Robbery
Robbery is the crime of taking or attempting to take anything of value by force, threat of force, or use of fear. According to common law, robbery is defined as taking the property of another, with the intent to permanently deprive the person of that property, by means of force or fear; that is, it is a larceny or theft accomplished by an assault. Precise definitions of the offence may vary between jurisdictions. Robbery is differentiated from other forms of theft (such as burglary, shoplifting, pickpocketing, or car theft) by its inherently violent nature (a violent crime); whereas many lesser forms of theft are punished as misdemeanors, robbery is always a felony in jurisdictions that distinguish between the two. Under English law, most forms of theft are triable either way, whereas robbery is triable only on indictment. Etymology The word "rob" came via French from Late Latin words (e.g., ''deraubare'') of Germanic origin, from Common Germanic ''raub'' "theft". Types ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
