9,901 articles
Medellín Cartel
Medellín Cartel: Colombian cocaine trafficking organization based in Medellín, led by Pablo Escobar, dominant in the 1980s US cocaine trade, defeated by the early 1990s.
Medellín v. Texas
Medellín v. Texas, 552 U.S. 491 (2008), a 6–3 Supreme Court decision holding that the ICJ's Avena judgment and President Bush's memorandum were not directly enforceable federal law against Texas habeas rules.
Mediation
Mediation: neutral third party helps disputants settle by their interests without imposing a decision. Also ADR mediation. Settlement rates above 50%, often near 75%; court-annexed programs cut case duration.
Medical malpractice
Medical malpractice is professional negligence by healthcare providers, a tort requiring proof of duty, breach, causation, and damages. Rooted in English common law, prominent in the US since the 1840s, with damages caps and no-fault alternatives.
Medicine Lodge Treaty
Medicine Lodge Treaty: three October 1867 treaties at Medicine Lodge Creek, Kansas, between a U.S. peace commission and the Kiowa, Comanche, Apache, Cheyenne, and Arapaho, relocating them to Indian Territory reservations; Article 12's three-fourths consent rule later reached the Supreme Court in Lone Wolf v. Hitchcock.
Medieval Inquisition
Medieval Inquisition: the papal anti-heresy system of thirteenth- and fourteenth-century Europe, based on the inquisitio judicial technique, run mainly by Dominicans and Franciscans, distinct from the later Spanish Inquisition.
Meech Lake Accord
The Meech Lake Accord (1987 Constitutional Accord), a Mulroney-era deal meeting Quebec's five conditions including distinct society status, died in June 1990 without unanimous ratification after Elijah Harper's Manitoba stand and Newfoundland's Clyde Wells refused approval.
Megan Ambuhl
Megan Ambuhl (Megan Ambuhl Graner), former U.S. Army Reserve specialist of the 372nd Military Police Company, served on the night shift at Abu Ghraib's Tier 1B in 2003, pleaded guilty to dereliction of duty in 2004, and married Charles Graner Jr. in 2005.
Megan B. Benton
Megan B. Benton, also known as Megan Blair Benton, is an American jurist serving as a United States district judge for the Western District of Missouri since 2026.
Megan's Law
Megan's Law: US sex offender registration and community notification laws named for Megan Kanka, murdered in New Jersey in 1994. New Jersey enacted it in 1994; a 1996 federal law amended the Wetterling Act; SORNA (2006) later replaced it.
Megatons to Megawatts Program
Megatons to Megawatts: 1993 US-Russia HEU Purchase Agreement converting 500 metric tons of warhead uranium into 15,200 tons of reactor fuel, ~20,000 warheads' worth, ~10% of US electricity, ended December 2013.
Mehmet Ali Ağca
Mehmet Ali Ağca (born 1958, Malatya), Turkish Grey Wolves militant who murdered Abdi İpekçi in 1979 and shot Pope John Paul II in St. Peter's Square on 13 May 1981; life sentence in Italy, pardoned 2000, Bulgarian-connection case collapsed.
Mehul Choksi (मेहुल चोकसी)
Mehul Choksi (मेहुल चोकसी), fugitive diamantaire and former Gitanjali Gems managing director, accused with nephew Nirav Modi in the $1.8 billion Punjab National Bank fraud; fled India in 2018, holds Antiguan citizenship, arrested in Antwerp in 2025.
Meiji Constitution
The Meiji Constitution (Dai Nihon Teikoku Kenpo), Japan's 1889 imperial constitution, promulgated 11 February 1889, effective 1890, modeled chiefly on the Prussian 1850 constitution, established imperial sovereignty with a Diet, and was replaced in 1947.
Melanie McGuire
Melanie McGuire, the "suitcase killer," is a former New Jersey fertility clinic nurse convicted in 2007 of murdering, dismembering, and dumping her husband Bill McGuire in Chesapeake Bay suitcases in 2004; she is serving a life sentence and maintains innocence.
Melbourne gangland killings
Melbourne gangland killings, also called the Melbourne gangland wars or underworld war: tit-for-tat murders among Melbourne crime factions from 1998 to about 2010, driven by the amphetamines trade, ending with Carl Williams' 2010 prison killing and followed by the Lawyer X informant scandal.
Melbourne tobacco wars
Melbourne tobacco wars: violent turf conflict since March 2023 between organised crime syndicates, notably Kazem Hamad's 'The Commission', over Victoria's illicit tobacco and vape market, marked by 200+ arson attacks, homicides, and escalating police closure and seizure powers.
Melinda Harmon
Melinda Harmon, born 1946 in Port Arthur, Texas, is a senior US district judge for the Southern District of Texas, appointed by George H.W. Bush in 1989.
Melissa Damian
Melissa Damian, born 1968 in Miami, is an American jurist serving as a United States district judge for the Southern District of Florida since 2024, appointed by President Biden.
Melissa Lucio
Melissa Lucio, first Hispanic woman sentenced to death in Texas, convicted 2008 of killing daughter Mariah; 2022 stay, 2024 innocence finding, 2026 CCA 5-4 denial.
Melissa R. DuBose
Melissa Raye DuBose, born 1968 in Providence, Rhode Island, is a United States district judge for the District of Rhode Island, appointed by President Biden in 2024.
Melville Fuller
Melville Weston Fuller, eighth Chief Justice of the United States (1888-1910), Chicago attorney nominated by Grover Cleveland; led the Fuller Court through Plessy, Lochner, Pollock, and E.C. Knight and the Evarts Act reform.
Melvin Belli
Melvin Mouron Belli (1907–1996), the San Francisco "King of Torts," pioneered demonstrative evidence in personal injury trials, defended Jack Ruby in 1964, represented celebrity clients, wrote over sixty books, and filed for bankruptcy in 1995.
Melvin Purvis
Melvin Horace Purvis Jr. (1903-1960), FBI Chicago special agent in charge, led the 1934 manhunt that killed John Dillinger at the Biograph Theater, also pursued Pretty Boy Floyd, resigned 1935 after Hoover's hostility, died 1960 in a disputed gunshot death.
Member states of the World Trade Organization
The member states of the WTO are the 166 governments, including the European Union, that have accepted the WTO Agreement and cover about 98 percent of world trade.
Member-state implementation and reporting under Resolution 1373
Member-state implementation and reporting under Resolution 1373 is the process by which UN Member States report to the Counter-Terrorism Committee on implementing Resolution 1373 (2001).
Memorandum of association
Memorandum of association (MOA): the foundational incorporation document in British-derived company law, stating a company's name, registered office, objects, liability, and capital; acts beyond its objects are ultra vires, though UK reform has reduced it to a simple formation statement.
Memorandum trial
The Memorandum trial (Procesul Memorandului) was the political trial held at Cluj in May 1894 against Romanian National Party leaders of Transylvania who had signed the 1892 Memorandum.
Memorial Medical Center and Hurricane Katrina
Memorial Medical Center, formerly Southern Baptist Hospital, a Tenet-owned Uptown New Orleans hospital where 45 patients died during Hurricane Katrina in 2005, leading to murder charges against Dr. Anna Pou and two nurses, a grand jury's refusal to indict, and lasting disaster-medicine reforms.
Mens rea
Mens rea, Latin for "guilty mind," is the mental state required to convict a defendant of a crime, paired with the actus reus; the Model Penal Code sorts it into four levels of blameworthiness.