9,901 articles
Richie Roberts
Richie Roberts, the Essex County assistant prosecutor who led the investigation of Harlem heroin trafficker Frank Lucas and later served as Lucas's defense attorney, is best known as Russell Crowe's character in American Gangster (2007).
Richthofen case
Richthofen case: 2002 São Paulo parricide of Manfred and Marísia von Richthofen, planned by Suzane von Richthofen with Daniel and Cristian Cravinhos; 2006 jury convictions, 39-year sentences, later regime progression, and landmark Brazilian media-spectacularization scholarship.
Rickey Ray Rector
Rickey Ray Rector (1950-1992), Arkansas death row inmate executed January 24, 1992 for killing Conway police officer Robert Martin; brain-damaged by self-inflicted gunshot, ruled competent under Ford, clemency denied by Governor Clinton during his 1992 campaign.
Ricky Ray Rector
Ricky Ray Rector (Rickey Ray Rector), 1950-1992, Arkansas man executed for the 1981 murder of Conway police officer Bob Martin despite severe self-inflicted brain damage; Governor Bill Clinton left the 1992 New Hampshire campaign to oversee his lethal injection on January 24, 1992.
Riding a rail
Riding a rail, also called being run out of town on a rail, was an 18th- and 19th-century American mob punishment in which an offender straddled a fence rail carried by bearers, often combined with tarring and feathering, distinct from Depression-era riding the rails.
Ridouan Taghi
Ridouan Taghi, Dutch-Moroccan leader of the Mocro Maffia cocaine network, arrested in Dubai in 2019 and sentenced to life in 2024 for five murders in the Marengo trial, now appealing.
Right of asylum
Right of asylum: the human right to seek protection in another country from persecution, grounded in UDHR Article 14 and the 1951 Refugee Convention, non-refoulement, and regional instruments like the OAU Convention and Cartagena Declaration.
Right of conquest
Right of conquest: the classical international-law principle that a victorious state could claim sovereignty over conquered territory without the loser's consent, later displaced by the UN Charter-era prohibition on acquiring territory by force.
Right of way
Right of way: a legal easement permitting passage over another's land between a dominant and servient estate, created by express grant, implication, necessity, or prescription (typically 20 years' unopposed use).
Right to a fair trial
Right to a fair trial: human right to a fair, public hearing within a reasonable time before an independent, impartial tribunal established by law, protected by UDHR Article 10, ICCPR Article 14, and ECHR Article 6.
Right to be forgotten
The right to be forgotten (right to erasure, GDPR Article 17) lets individuals request delisting of personal data from search results. Established by the 2014 CJEU Google Spain ruling; balanced against free expression; no US equivalent.
Right to Buy
Right to Buy: statutory scheme letting eligible English social tenants buy their home at a discount, Housing Act 1980/1985; over two million homes sold; discounts cut to £16,000–£38,000 regional caps from 21 November 2024.
Right to counsel
Right to counsel: the Sixth Amendment guarantee of a lawyer in criminal prosecutions, including court-appointed counsel for indigent defendants, established for the states by Gideon v. Wainwright (1963) after Powell v. Alabama (1932) and Betts v. Brady (1942).
Right to Information Act, 2005
India's Right to Information Act, 2005 (RTI Act, No. 22 of 2005): law giving all citizens access to information held by public authorities, with 30-day (48-hour life-or-liberty) timelines, Section 8 exemptions, Information Commissions, appeals, and the 2019 and DPDP 2023 amendments.
Right to keep and bear arms
Right to keep and bear arms: the Second Amendment individual right to possess and carry firearms, defined in Heller (2008), extended by McDonald and Bruen, limited by Rahimi, and rare among national constitutions.
Right to keep and bear arms in the United States
The right to keep and bear arms in the United States is the Second Amendment individual right, defined by Heller (2008), extended to states by McDonald (2010), and tested under Bruen's 2022 history-and-tradition standard, refined by Rahimi (2024).
Right to privacy
Right to privacy: legal and human right against arbitrary interference with private life, family, home, correspondence, and personal data. Rooted in Warren and Brandeis's 1890 essay, Griswold v. Connecticut, UDHR Article 12, ECHR Article 8, and the EU GDPR.
Right to property
Right to property: the legal guarantee of owning, using, and not being arbitrarily deprived of property, also called protection of possessions. Key forms: UDHR Article 17, ECHR Protocol 1 (1952), US Fifth Amendment Takings Clause, South African Constitution section 25, Indian Article 300-A.
Right to silence
Right to silence: a suspect's privilege against self-incrimination in criminal proceedings, also called the privilege against self-incrimination. Covers adverse inferences, ECtHR Murray case law, England and Wales CJPOA 1994, and the US Fifth Amendment bar on adverse inference at trial.
Right to Work
Right to work: the human right to gain a living by freely chosen work (ICESCR article 6, ILO Convention 122), not a guaranteed job; distinct from US anti-union right-to-work laws and UK immigration right-to-work checks.
Right-to-work law
Right-to-work laws are U.S. state statutes, authorized by Section 14(b) of the 1947 Taft-Hartley Act, that prohibit union security agreements requiring dues payment; 27 states have them, and Michigan repealed its law in 2024.
RIGI (Argentina)
RIGI (Régimen de Incentivo para Grandes Inversiones) is an Argentine investment incentive scheme created in 2024 under President Javier Milei to attract large projects with tax and foreign exchange benefits.
Riley v. California
Riley v. California, 573 U.S. 373 (2014), a unanimous Supreme Court decision with United States v. Wurie, held police generally need a warrant to search a cell phone seized incident to arrest, though exigent circumstances still apply.
Riley Williams
Riley June Williams, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania woman convicted of civil disorder for the January 6, 2021 Capitol attack; charged but not convicted in Nancy Pelosi laptop theft; sentenced to 36 months, later pardoned by Trump.
Ring boy scandal
Ring boy scandal: allegations that WWF/WWE ring announcer Mel Phillips sexually exploited teenage ring crew boys in the late 1980s and early 1990s, leading to 1992 departures of Phillips, Terry Garvin, and Pat Patterson, and an October 2024 negligence lawsuit against WWE, Vince and Linda McMahon, and TKO under Maryland's Child Victims Act.
Rio Declaration on Environment and Development
Rio Declaration on Environment and Development: 27-principle non-binding UN text adopted 14 June 1992 at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, building on the 1972 Stockholm Declaration; key texts include anthropocentric Principle 1, sovereignty-tempering Principle 2, and participation Principle 10.
Rio Protocol
The Rio Protocol is a 1942 treaty signed by Peru and Ecuador in Rio de Janeiro that defined their land border after the Ecuadorian–Peruvian War of 1941.
Riot Act
The Riot Act (1714) was a British statute letting officials read a proclamation ordering crowds of over twelve to disperse within an hour, on pain of death; repealed 1973, succeeded by the Public Order Act 1986 riot offence.
Riparian water rights
Riparian water rights give landowners bordering a waterbody rights to reasonable use of its water, attached to the land and not lost by non-use; the doctrine predominates in the eastern United States, contrasting with western prior appropriation.
Ripper Chandran
Ripper Chandran (Muthukutty Chandran, റിപ്പർ ചന്ദ്രൻ, 1950–1991), Kerala serial killer who murdered 14 people in 1985–86 robberies, hanged at Kannur Central Jail on 6 July 1991, Kerala's last execution.