What is the meaning of the &quot;disposed&quot; legal staus in the US? I am looking at the criminal record of a person and I see there: Defendant: Disposed Disposition: Disposed I've googled it but still didn't get it. Does it mean that the accused person was freed of all the charges or has been convicted by the court? In other word the case was closed.
Saying a case is "disposed" means that the case has been closed. From The Law Dictionary: What Does Disposed Mean In A Court Case? When a case has been disposed, this means it has been closed. Specific reasons for a case being closed can include dismissal, conviction, admission of guilt, among other reasons. Once a case is officially over, it is removed from the court’s docket. Which simply means there are no further dates for that matter scheduled on the court’s calendar. As a legal term, disposed cases can include any type of case ranging from small claim to more felony charges.
In general, ignorance of a law is an excuse only when the law specifically says it is. There are extreme cases where a law has been found invalid because it did not give people enough notice. Actually, only one case I know of -- Lambert v. California, 355 U.S. 225 (1957). The city of Los Angeles passed a law making it illegal for anyone who had ever been convicted of a felony to remain in the city for five days without registering as a felon. Lambert was arrested on suspicion of doing something else, but convicted for being an unregistered felon. The Supreme Court held that it was a violation of Lambert's due process rights to convict her of a crime she had no way of knowing about, or even suspecting. This is a very rare, extreme case, and does not apply to things where people might be expected to suspect that there might be a law. Otherwise, notice of a law is only required if the statute says so; for example, if a speed limit law requires the posting of signs, but the signs aren't posted, the law may not be in effect. However, ignorance still isn't an excuse--if the sign is posted, but you just didn't notice it, you're still on the hook.
Depends where you are At common law, theft (or more generally, larceny) requires an intent to permanently deprive the owner of possession. However, many jurisdictions have removed this element from the crime. For example, s118 of the new-south-wales Crimes Act 1900 says: 118 Intent to return property no defence Where, on the trial of a person for larceny, it appears that the accused appropriated the property in question to the accused's own use, or for the accused's own benefit, or that of another, but intended eventually to restore the same, or in the case of money to return an equivalent amount, such person shall not by reason only thereof be entitled to acquittal.
That sounds a lot like the German Antragsdelikt (literally "crime by request"). That is a crime (defined in the criminal code), that can only be prosecuted if the victim requests it. Antragsdelikt mostly applies to less serious crimes, such as slander or petty theft, while "serious" crimes, such as robbery or assault must always be prosecuted (Offizialdelikt). Also, there are many minor crimes (relatives Antragsdelikt) which are usually only prosecuted by request, but where the prosecution can also decide to press charges if it is in the "public interest" (usually because the act is deemed a serious infraction). Similar concepts exist in Austria and Switzerland.
In the United States, a crime is not prosecuted on behalf of the victim. Crimes are offenses against a sovereign, and are prosecuted on behalf of that sovereign. Prosecutions in California are brought on behalf of &quot;the People of the State of California:&quot; you have violated their laws, and you are being punished for that. The state constitution gives crime victims the right &quot;[t]o reasonable notice of and to reasonably confer with the prosecuting agency, upon request, regarding, the arrest of the defendant if known by the prosecutor, the charges filed, the determination whether to extradite the defendant, and, upon request, to be notified of and informed before any pretrial disposition of the case.&quot; What it does not give is the right to decide on any of those issues. That decision is made by public prosecutors on behalf of the state and the public writ large.
Black's Law Dictionary (5th edition 1979) states that &quot;Liquidated&quot; means Ascertained; determined; fixed; settled; made clear or manifest. This is the sense of the term in which damages are &quot;liquidated&quot; by a liquidated damages term in a contract or statute. The damages are settled by a contractual determine rather than being &quot;unliquidated&quot; (i.e. uncertain or unresolved or undetermined.) The sense of the word meaning sold or reduced to money, is derivative of this prior and more fundamental sense of the word. When assets or an estate are reduced to money their fair market value is fixed or settled. How a word meaning &quot;liquid&quot; came to mean &quot;make clear&quot; when modified is speculative (given what my brief research uncovered), but I think that are some very plausible paths by which that could have happened. According to Oxford Languages: liq·ui·date /ˈlikwəˌdāt/ Origin mid 16th century (in the sense ‘set out (accounts) clearly’): from medieval Latin liquidat- ‘made clear’, from the verb liquidare, from Latin liquidus (see liquid). liquidate (sense 1) was influenced by Italian liquidare and French liquider, liquidate (sense 2) by Russian likvidirovatʹ A second online dictionary source states: liquidate (v.) 1570s, of accounts, &quot;to reduce to order, to set out clearly&quot; (a sense now obsolete), from Late Latin or Medieval Latin liquidatus, past participle of liquidare &quot;to melt, make liquid, make clear, clarify,&quot; from Latin liquidus &quot;fluid, liquid, moist&quot; (see liquid (adj.)). Sense of &quot;clear away&quot; (a debt) first recorded 1755. The meaning &quot;wipe out, kill&quot; is from 1924, possibly from Russian likvidirovat, ultimately from the Latin word. Related: Liquidated; liquidating. English.StackExchange has some answers of essentially the same question that doesn't shed much more light on the matter but one excerpt is notable: The meaning is already present in the Latin liquidus which means both &quot;liquid&quot; and &quot;clear, evident&quot;. This obviously comes from liquids being limpid (transparent). Limpid by the way (another Latin cognate, originally from Oscan origin) gives Spanish limpido and limpiar. Also liquare means &quot;to filter&quot;. So that the idea of transparency and purity is already strongly associated with liquids in Latin.
The relevant Maryland statute is MD. Criminal Law Code Ann. § 9-307 (2021), subsection (a): A person may not destroy, alter, conceal, or remove physical evidence that the person believes may be used in a pending or future official proceeding with the intent to impair the verity or availability of the physical evidence in the official proceeding. Note &quot;that the person believes&quot; and &quot;with the intent to.&quot; If you have no reason to think it might be necessary in an official proceeding, you aren't violating this section. If you delete the data unintentionally or for some other reason, then you also probably are not violating the section. (I say &quot;probably&quot; because I'm sure there's some sort of provision for negligence or willful disregard for the evidential value of something you should know has evidential value.) As a practical matter, no copyright lawsuit or criminal trial (and criminal trials over copyright infringement are very rare) is going to depend on the browser history of the defendant's friend. What if my computer has major software issues and the only viable solution is delete everything and reinstall from scratch; am I stuck with a worthless broken computer because reinstalling things from scratch would delete evidence of a crime? If you know of evidence on the hard drive that would be destroyed, you can copy it somewhere else before deleting and reinstalling. Federal law is similar: it requires knowledge and intent. 18 USC 1519: Whoever knowingly alters, destroys, mutilates, conceals, covers up, falsifies, or makes a false entry in any record, document, or tangible object with the intent to impede, obstruct, or influence the investigation or proper administration of any matter within the jurisdiction of any department or agency of the United States or any case filed under title 11, or in relation to or contemplation of any such matter or case, shall be fined under this title, imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both.
An indictment is issued by a grand jury when they are convinced, on the basis of evidence presented to them by the government, that there is probable cause to believe that the person committed a crime. However, the indictment only has to state the charges, i.e. the grand jury's conclusion; it doesn't have to describe the evidence that led them to this conclusion. In particular, the grand jury can hear the testimony of witnesses under oath, and has subpoena powers to compel testimony. But testimony before a grand jury is sealed and must not be revealed by anyone except the witness themself. A good source for learning more about the grand jury process is the Handbook for Federal Grand Jurors. The authoritative source is the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, Title III. So, there must have been some evidence that he committed a crime, at least in the grand jury's view. But we, the public, don't get to see it at this time. If the case goes to trial, evidence will be presented publicly at that time, though it won't necessarily be the same evidence that convinced the grand jury to indict. (Note that this answer is about the US federal criminal justice system, since that's what's involved in the Collins case. Some states may have a similar system; others may not.)