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Eugene Palmer (fugitive)
Eugene Kenneth Palmer (born April 4, 1939) is an American fugitive wanted for the 2012 murder of his daughter-in-law Tammy Palmer in Stony Point, New York; the oldest person ever on the FBI Ten Most Wanted list (added 2019, removed 2022), still at large.
Eva Coo
Eva Coo (Eva Curry, 1889-1935), Canadian-American Oneonta, New York brothel owner executed at Sing Sing in 1935 for the insurance-motivated 1934 mallet-and-car murder of handyman Harry Wright with accomplice Martha Clift.
Eve teasing
Eve teasing: South Asian (Indian English) term for public sexual harassment of women and girls, covering catcalling, groping, stalking, and obscene gestures; criticized as a trivializing euphemism for street harassment.
Evelyn Frechette
Evelyn 'Billie' Frechette (1907–1969), Menominee girlfriend of John Dillinger, convicted in 1934 of harboring a federal fugitive, later a touring lecturer, portrayed by Marion Cotillard in Public Enemies (2009).
Evin Prison (زندان اوین)
Evin Prison (زندان اوین), Tehran's notorious prison built in 1971 under SAVAK, holds Iran's political prisoners in wards 209, 240, and 325. Site of 1988 mass executions, the October 2022 fire, and the June 2025 Israeli strike that killed about 71 people.
Ex post facto law
Ex post facto law: retroactive legislation, chiefly criminal laws that criminalize past conduct or increase punishment. Barred by US Constitution Article I and ICCPR Article 15; defined by Calder v. Bull's four categories.
Exclusionary rule
The exclusionary rule is a US judge-made doctrine barring government use of evidence obtained in constitutional violation, established federally in Weeks v. United States (1914) and extended to states by Mapp v. Ohio (1961), with exceptions such as good faith and inevitable discovery.
Exculpatory evidence
Exculpatory evidence is criminal-case evidence tending to excuse or absolve a defendant, as opposed to inculpatory evidence. Under Brady v. Maryland (1963), US prosecutors must disclose material exculpatory and impeachment evidence regardless of defense request.
Excuse
Excuse, in criminal law, a defense admitting the criminal act but denying blameworthiness due to impaired choice (insanity, duress, involuntary intoxication, mistake), contrasted with justification, which denies wrongfulness; core of justification-excuse theory.
Execution by elephant
Execution by elephant: capital punishment by trained elephants crushing or dismembering the condemned, used across South and Southeast Asia for millennia, notably under the Delhi Sultanate and Mughals, and echoed in American circus elephant executions such as Topsy's 1903 electrocution.
Execution by firing squad
Execution by firing squad: simultaneous rifle volley aimed at the heart; rare in the US (six since 1977), legal in five states, now Idaho's primary method and a federal option.
Execution by shooting
Execution by shooting, usually by firing squad, kills a condemned person with simultaneous rifle fire aimed at the heart. Five US states authorize it, Idaho made it primary in 2026, and the Army scheduled Nidal Hasan's December 2026 firing-squad execution.
Execution chamber
Execution chamber: the secure prison room where judicial executions are carried out, housing the gurney, electric chair, gas chamber, or firing-squad chair, plus a witness room. Key facts: first electrocution of Kemmler in 1890, lethal injection dominant since 1982, nitrogen hypoxia first used in Alabama in 2024.
Execution of Alan Eugene Miller
Alan Eugene Miller (born 1965) was executed by nitrogen hypoxia in Alabama on September 26, 2024, the second such U.S. execution and 1600th since 1976, after a botched 2022 lethal injection and settled litigation over the method.
Execution of Clayton Lockett
The April 29, 2014 botched Oklahoma lethal injection of Clayton Lockett, convicted of the 1999 murder of Stephanie Neiman: failed IV placement, midazolam protocol, 43-minute death, state investigation, and Glossip v. Gross aftermath.
Execution of Kenneth Eugene Smith
Kenneth Eugene Smith, Alabama death-row prisoner convicted of the 1988 murder-for-hire killing of Elizabeth Sennett, was executed January 25, 2024, by nitrogen hypoxia at Holman Correctional Facility, the first U.S. nitrogen gas execution, after a failed 2022 lethal injection attempt.
Execution of Saddam Hussein
Execution of Saddam Hussein: former Iraqi president hanged in Baghdad on December 30, 2006 after the Iraqi High Tribunal convicted him of crimes against humanity for the 1982 Dujail killings; widely criticized as a flawed trial with a sectarian taunting video.
Execution of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto
Execution of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto: Pakistan's first elected prime minister (1973–1977), hanged 4 April 1979 in Rawalpindi after a murder trial under Zia-ul-Haq's martial law; the Supreme Court ruled in 2024 the trial was unfair.
Executioner
Executioner: the official who carries out death sentences. Known in medieval France as bourreau; also called hangman, headsman, or Scottish lockman. Role evolved from varied delegated duties into hereditary, dishonorable trade, then anonymous modern prison personnel.
Exigent circumstance
Exigent circumstances are Fourth Amendment exceptions letting US police search or enter homes without a warrant during emergencies: hot pursuit, evidence destruction, escape, danger, or emergency aid, per Payton, King, Brigham City, and Case v. Montana.
Exile
Exile is banishment from one's native country by authority, or voluntary departure to escape penalty. Latin exsilium; Roman aquae et ignis interdictio, deportatio, relegatio; Greek homicide flight; later colonial penal transportation, deportation, and political exile.
Expungement
Expungement is the legal removal of a criminal record from public access, distinct from sealing, set-aside, and pardon. Covers US state variation, federal limits under 18 U.S.C. 3607, Clean Slate automation, the 6.5% uptake gap, and measured wage and recidivism effects.
Extortion
Extortion: obtaining property or benefit through threats, legally distinct from blackmail; at common law an officials' offense, now covered by the Hobbs Act and 18 U.S.C. 873, and a top FBI-reported cybercrime via ransomware and sextortion.
Extrajudicial killing
Extrajudicial killing, also called summary or arbitrary execution, is deliberate killing by state agents or allied non-state actors outside judicial process, prohibited under ICCPR Article 6 and monitored by a UN Special Rapporteur.
Extrajudicial killings and forced disappearances in the Philippines
Extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances in the Philippines, centered on Duterte's 2016 "war on drugs" with 6,252 official deaths, ongoing killings under Marcos Jr., and the ICC prosecution of Rodrigo Duterte for murder as a crime against humanity.
Eye for an eye
Eye for an eye (lex talionis) is the law of retaliation from Hammurabi's Code, the Hebrew Bible, and Roman law, functioning as a proportional ceiling on punishment that later evolved into monetary compensation and modern sentencing proportionality.
Fabio Ochoa Vásquez
Fabio Ochoa Vásquez, born 1957, founding member with his brothers of Colombia's Medellín Cartel under Pablo Escobar; surrendered in 1990, extradited to the US in 2001 in Operation Millennium, sentenced in 2003 to 30 years, and deported home in December 2024.
Fagan v Metropolitan Police Commissioner
Fagan v Metropolitan Police Commissioner [1969] 1 QB 439, also cited as Fagan v MPC, is a 1968 English Divisional Court case holding that a driver who accidentally parked on a policeman's foot and refused to move committed assault, establishing the continuing act doctrine for coincidence of actus reus and mens rea.
Fair Sentencing Act
Fair Sentencing Act of 2010 (P.L. 111-220), U.S. law signed August 3, 2010 that cut the crack-to-powder cocaine ratio from 100:1 to 18:1, raised crack quantity thresholds, and ended mandatory minimums for simple possession; made retroactive by the 2018 First Step Act.
False accusation
False accusation: knowingly or falsely alleging another committed an offense, charged as perverting the course of justice, wasting police time, or statutory false accusation offenses; a contributing factor in wrongful convictions alongside false confessions and mistaken identifications.