3,576 articles
Josh Phillips (murderer)
Joshua Earl Patrick Phillips is an American who killed 8-year-old Maddie Clifton in Jacksonville, Florida, in 1998, at age 14, and was sentenced to life in prison.
Joshi-Abhyankar serial murders
Joshi-Abhyankar serial murders: ten 1976-77 Pune killings by students Rajendra Jakkal, Dilip Sutar, Shantaram Jagtap, and Munawar Shah, including the Abhyankar family massacre; death sentence 1978, hanged at Yerawada in 1983.
Juan Corona
Juan Vallejo Corona, Mexican-born California farm labor contractor and serial killer, convicted of murdering 25 itinerant farmworkers buried in Yuba City-area peach orchards in 1971; first conviction overturned, 1982 retrial conviction upheld; died 2019.
Juan José Esparragoza Moreno
Juan José Esparragoza Moreno, alias El Azul (born 1949), Mexican drug trafficker, Sinaloa Cartel leader and cartel peace broker; reported dead of a heart attack 7 June 2014, never confirmed; FBI fugitive.
Juan Matta-Ballesteros
Juan Ramón Matta-Ballesteros, born in 1945, was a Honduran cocaine trafficker and broker who pioneered transit routes linking the Medellín and Guadalajara Cartels in the 1980s.
Juan Severino Mallari
Juan Severino Mallari (1785-1840), Filipino priest of Magalang, Pampanga; arrested 1825-26 over five documented murders, hanged 1840; popularly called the Philippines' first serial killer via Sinibaldo de Mas's 57-victim claim.
Juana Barraza
Juana Barraza Samperio, Mexican former wrestler La Dama del Silencio, convicted as serial killer La Mataviejitas for strangling elderly women in Mexico City; 759-year sentence (50-year cap), arrested 2006 via fingerprints.
Juanita Broaddrick
Juanita Broaddrick, Arkansas nursing home administrator and Jane Doe No. 5 in the Paula Jones suit, alleges Bill Clinton raped her in 1978; no charges resulted, Starr called her account inconclusive.
Juárez Cartel
Juárez Cartel (Cártel de Juárez), also the Vicente Carrillo Fuentes Organization, is a Mexican drug trafficking organization based in Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, founded in the 1980s, led by Amado Carrillo Fuentes until 1997, and now dominated by its La Línea armed wing.
Judy Buenoano
Judy Buenoano (Judias Anna Lou Buenoano), Florida's "Black Widow," executed by electrocution March 30, 1998 for the 1971 arsenic murder of husband James Goodyear; also convicted of drowning her son and attempting to murder her fiancé.
June 1962 Alcatraz escape attempt
June 1962 Alcatraz escape attempt: Frank Morris and John and Clarence Anglin fled Alcatraz on June 11, 1962 via a raincoat raft; fate unknown, FBI case closed 1979, Marshals still investigate.
Jung Yoo-jung (정유정)
Jung Yoo-jung (정유정) is the South Korean woman who murdered a female tutor she met through an online tutoring app in Busan on May 26, 2023, out of curiosity about killing; she received a finalized life sentence with 30-year electronic tagging on June 13, 2024.
Junior Soprano
Junior Soprano, Corrado Soprano Jr., "Uncle Junior", is Tony Soprano's uncle in HBO's The Sopranos, played by Dominic Chianese: figurehead boss of the DiMeo family, Livia's co-conspirator, later declining through retrial, cancer, and dementia.
Jury
Jury: a sworn group of citizens, usually 12, that decides facts and returns a verdict in a trial (also grand jury), and, in a second sense, a panel judging competitions or prizes; from Old French juree, oath.
Jury duty
Jury duty, or jury service, is compulsory civic service as a trial juror. Covers summons and selection from voter and license lists, US federal pay of $50 per day, employer protections, Ontario's $120 daily rate, trust-building effects, and UK 2025 reforms.
Jury nullification
Jury nullification, also called jury veto or jury equity, occurs when jurors acquit a defendant they believe guilty because applying the law would be unjust.
Jury selection
Jury selection (voir dire) is the process of assembling a trial jury from a randomly drawn pool via questionnaires, questioning, and challenges for cause and peremptory challenges, with Batson limits on race-based strikes and ongoing reform debates.
Justifiable homicide
Justifiable homicide is the lawful killing of a person in circumstances such as self-defense, law enforcement, or execution, which absolves the killer of criminal liability, unlike excusable or mitigated killings.
Justification and excuse
Justification and excuse: the two main categories of criminal law defenses that concede the actus reus and mens rea but deny liability; justification denies wrongdoing, excuse denies blameworthiness.
Juvenile court
Juvenile court, a separate court system for minors accused of delinquency, founded in Chicago in 1899, emphasizes rehabilitation over punishment, uses adjudication rather than guilty verdicts, and differs procedurally from adult criminal court.
Juvenile delinquency
Juvenile delinquency, also called youth crime or juvenile offending, is behavior by a minor that would be a crime if committed by an adult, plus age-only status offenses like truancy.
Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015
India's Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015 (JJ Act 2015), Act No. 2 of 2016, replaces the 2000 Act; covers children in conflict with law and in need of care; allows 16-18-year-olds trial as adults for heinous offences; amended 2021.
Kaboni Savage
Kaboni Savage (born 1975), Philadelphia drug trafficker who led the Kaboni Savage Organization in North Philadelphia; convicted in 2013 of 12 murders in aid of racketeering including the 2004 Coleman family firebombing, sentenced to death 13 times, commuted to life without parole by Biden in 2024.
Kalief Browder
Kalief Browder (1993–2015) was a Bronx teenager held at Rikers Island for three years without trial over a backpack theft; he died by suicide in 2015.
Kane Gamble
Kane Gamble, British founder of Crackas With Attitude, used social engineering from Coalville to access US officials' accounts including CIA chief John Brennan; sentenced in 2018 to a 24-month detention order.
Kansas City crime family
Kansas City crime family, also called the Civella clan, a Kansas City, Missouri Italian-American Mafia family born under the Pendergast machine, led by Nick Civella, notorious for Las Vegas casino skimming, now a small remnant reportedly led by John Sciortino.
Kaoru Kobayashi (小林薫) (murderer)
Kaoru Kobayashi (小林薫), 1968-2013, Japanese newspaper delivery worker who kidnapped, sexually assaulted, and murdered 7-year-old Kaede Ariyama in Nara on 17 November 2004; death sentence 2006, executed 2013.
Karen Friedman Hill
Karen Friedman Hill (born 1946), ex-wife of Lucchese associate Henry Hill of Wiseguy and Goodfellas fame; married him in 1965, entered witness protection in 1980, divorced 2002, portrayed by Lorraine Bracco, lives under an alias.
Karen Read
Karen Read is the Massachusetts woman tried twice over the January 2022 death of Boston officer John O'Keefe in Canton. Acquitted of murder, manslaughter, and leaving the scene in June 2025; convicted of OUI; civil suits continue.
Karen Sparks Epley
Karen Sparks Epley, also known under the pseudonym Joni Lenz, is the American survivor of Ted Bundy's first known attack, on January 4, 1974, in Seattle; she suffered permanent brain damage and first told her story in the 2020 docuseries Ted Bundy: Falling for a Killer.