Similar website to TheLawPages in the USA? I use a website called TheLawPages to research various crimes, and sentences given to offenders. It is an invaluable tool, especially because it allows me to pick the type of court, offence type, and even the age of the defendant. The output would show defendants that have pleaded, or been found, guilty and their subsequent sentence. Unfortunately, this website is only for offences and sentences in the United Kingdom. Are there any websites similar to TheLawPages for American criminal Law? Preferably, I would like to search by state and perhaps even at the Federal level.
The U.S. has no such website, at least at either the federal or the state level. It is possible that some local courts allow their records to be searched on that basis although I am not aware of any that do so. Probably the closest database to that in the U.S. accessible to the public is the non-governmental non-profit organization operated Transactional Record Access Clearinghouse for federal criminal justice records (and other federal government records). It has lots of data on federal government matters from a variety of sources but isn't quite as comprehensive or as easy to use as the website described in the question. The problem with that is that the federal courts handle only a small percentage of the criminal cases in the United States, and it is a highly skewed mix of cases (e.g. with lots of immigration cases but few ordinary &quot;blue collar crime&quot; cases outside Indian Reservations and federal parks). The information necessary to build such a website is largely a matter of public record, but no one has taken on the task of making such a website. In part, this is because the task is so daunting. While the federal courts have a comprehensive electronic database called PACER, each state has at least one separate court case data base system, and many states have trial court case databases only at the county level and not at the state level, or have different databases for different kinds of courts. Even in states that do have statewide databases, there are often some courts that aren't included. For example, Colorado's state courts are part of a single statewide database, but its municipal courts each have their own separate court by court databases. Some rural areas in the U.S. still keep trial court records in paper form only. The data has been gathered from time to time of important subsets of this kind of data, but it isn't publicly available. For example, a media consortia in Florida gathered information to examine the consistency of sentencing and the extent of racial discrimination in sentencing in Florida, and the U.S. Sentencing Commission in the United States gathers such information selectively to make sentencing decisions. Neither of those compilations, however, including making the raw data available to the public. Similarly, there is a separate private academic database that tracks case level state general jurisdiction trial court data in 75 of the largest urban counties in the United States (including state law felony cases). But, that database is only available to members of the academic consortium that maintains it (basically, professors at affiliated universities and other professors granted privileges to use it from consortium member professors). The Westlaw division of its parent company, and Lexis-Nexus collect some trial court level data on U.S. courts, state and federal, on a non-comprehensive, basically opportunistic basis, but don't have complete data from any jurisdiction (although Westlaw's federal data basis has a pretty significant share of reasoned federal trial court orders). Both of these services require paid subscriptions. In contrast, comprehensive databases of precedent making appellate court decisions at the state and federal level are widely available on both a commercial basis (with better search tools, headnote analysis, and correlations of the data like records of cases citing other cases and statutes), and on a non-commercial basis (with just the bare bones text of the cases). This is because this information is necessary to almost every lawyer and judge to practice law on a day to day basis.
I have not read the news report so cannot comment on the alleged offences and police conduct, but what I can say is that the information to given on arrest may be found at section 28 Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 (PACE): (1) Subject to subsection (5) below, where a person is arrested, otherwise than by being informed that he is under arrest, the arrest is not lawful unless the person arrested is informed that he is under arrest as soon as is practicable after his arrest. (2) Where a person is arrested by a constable, subsection (1) above applies regardless of whether the fact of the arrest is obvious. (3) Subject to subsection (5) below, no arrest is lawful unless the person arrested is informed of the ground for the arrest at the time of, or as soon as is practicable after, the arrest. (4) Where a person is arrested by a constable, subsection (3) above applies regardless of whether the ground for the arrest is obvious. (5) Nothing in this section is to be taken to require a person to be informed— (a) that he is under arrest; or (b) of the ground for the arrest,if it was not reasonably practicable for him to be so informed by reason of his having escaped from arrest before the information could be given. Note the provisions at subsection (3) do not require anyone else to be told the grounds (reasons) at the time of arrest - including members of the public, protesters, bloggers or the press. Kerb-side debates can seriously or significantly distract the officer from ensuring e.g. public safety or preventing e.g. an escape from custody. Also, depending on what else is going on e.g. say in a dynamic and volatile crowd control or public order situation, the person under arrest does not need to told immediately if it would be impractical to do so. The operative phrase being as soon as is practicable, which is not defined by statute as each case needs to be considered individually according to its own set of circumstances. The relevant case law is DPP v Hawkins [1988] 1 WLR 1166, but the only detailed commentary I can find online is behind the PNLD paywall1. Succinctly, the magistrates initially dismissed the case against Hawkins for assaulting four police officers who kept him under arrest without giving the grounds as required by s.28(3) PACE. The DPP appealed, and the Court of Appeal sent the case back to the magistrates saying, inter alia, although there is an obligation under s.28(3) to tell a prisoner of the reason for his arrest as soon as possible (sic) after his arrest, a constable was also under an obligation to maintain that arrest until it was practicable to do so. 1Or free to law enforcement officers
This is known as a retroactive or ex post facto law. Such laws are explicitly forbidden by the US Constitution (Wikipedia reference), and are generally frowned on in jurisdictions where the rule of law applies, partly because it is difficult to prove criminal intent when your action was not at the time criminal.
Courts, particularly traffic courts, tend to take a police officer's word over that of an accused person. While legally the limit is 70, the driver has very little recourse if the officer claims falsely that the actual speed was over 70. But the deterant effect of a posted limit is lost, since drivers in general have no way to know that Officer O will ticket anyone going over 60. I suppose that driver D, or D's lawyer, could subpoena calibration records of any radar gun or other measuring devise used, and could insist on its being tested. However, unless they had reason to think there was an issue, I wonder if D and D's lawyer would go through that process. Some speed measuring devices print a paper slip showing the date and time along with the reading. If such a device was used that record would be harder to alter. Some cars are now equipped with devices provided by insurance companies that record speeds and other driving info in a secure way to help judge a driver's safety and allow individual rate setting. It might be that the record from such a device would be admissible to show the speed was under the posted limit. But there is a sense in which the law is what the police and the courts enforce. If anyone who drives the road over 60 is cited and must pay, one could say the effective limit there is 60.
In the US, if a person enters a guilty plea, a judge may proceed to convict and sentence the accused without any form of trial. In the case of minor offenses with possible penalties of less than six months in jail, there is no US constitutional right to a jury trial. and the accused may be convicted and sentenced after a bench trial with no jury. In the case of infractions that are not criminal, such as many traffic offenses, a judge or magistrate may make a judgment and impose a penalty after a brief and often informal hearing. In some non-US jurisdictions, there is no right to a jury trial even in serious cases. In most such jurisdictions some form of due process and some hearing or trial is required for conviction. However, in various authoritarian regimes, people may be &quot;convicted&quot; of &quot;crimes&quot; without anything like a trial before an independent tribunal. In short, this depends on the nature of the case, and the laws of the jurisdiction involved.
Murder Which is the unlawful taking of a life with intent to do so. However, the doctrine of self-defence can make killing lawful: A person may use such force as is reasonable in the circumstances in the prevention of crime, or in effecting or assisting in the lawful arrest of offenders or suspected offenders or of persons unlawfully at large. if the prosecutor is of the opinion that the force used "is reasonable in the circumstances" they may not lay charges. If they do lay charges the judge may decide that there is no case to answer before going to trial if self-defence applies. If there is a trial this will probably be the strategy the defence employs and they may or may not be successful. If convicted the penalty is life imprisonment. Also, there is no UK law: there is the law of England and Wales, the law of Scotland and the law of Northern Ireland.
At the federal level, there is no real equivalent to what you're describing. A probable cause hearing evaluates the government's evidence in a similar way, but it doesn't ask whether a reasonable jury would convict. The closest I can think of is a Rule 29 motion, which does ask that question, but not until trial has already begun. You typically make the motion at the close of the government's case, and (if it was not successful) again at the close of your own, though I've heard tales of judges granting the motion at the end of the government's opening statement. The states all have their own rules, but they're generally pretty similar to the federal rules in this respect, as I understand it. I don't know of any state that allows the kind of motion you're talking about, in criminal cases, at least. In civil cases, I think everyone has Rule 12(b)(6) motions, which ask the court for a pretrial determination that there's no set of facts that could establish liability on the plaintiff's theory of the case.
This is a good question, which I am going to answer from a practical perspective, rather than a theoretical one, which would probably justify a law review article (applications of the takings clause to criminal justice fact patterns is actually one of my pet areas of legal scholarship, but a lot of it calls for dramatic changes in established practice and precedents reached from other perspectives, making it impractical to pursue in real life). I recently had a case along these lines in my office where my client's property was seized as evidence in a criminal case against a third-party. The crime involved a gun shop where all of the guns that were in the possession of the shop owner for repairs at the time of the bust (i.e. as bailments), including ours worth several thousand dollars in addition to having some sentimental value, were seized as evidence of charges against a shop owner who was fencing stolen goods, making sales to felons off the books, falsifying excise tax returns, etc. He seemed legitimate and had been in business for many years in what was not a fly by night operation. He had all of the proper licenses. Who knew we were dealing with a crook? In that case, we intervened on behalf of our client in the primary case to seek the physical return of the property (basically a replevin claim), as have others affected by the bust. It took a few months and some legal fees, but we prevailed without too much effort, as have the other intervenors. Generally speaking, to make a 5th Amendment claim, you would have to show a total taking and move into some legal gray areas in this context, while it is usually hard for authorities to show a continuing need for possession of third-party property in the face of a demand for its return, especially when photography and other scientific tools can document the evidence in great detail these days. In that case, showing that our client's particular gun was not involved in any illegitimate transaction also simultaneously made it less important as evidence, although that would not necessarily be true in general in these kinds of situations. There is a pending case in Colorado posing similar issues, where a suburban police department essentially destroyed a guy's home in order to catch a felon with no relation to the homeowner whatsoever, who had fled into it and taken refuge there. But, that case, as far as I know, has not yet been resolved on the merits.