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Avon Barksdale
Avon Randolph Barksdale is a fictional drug kingpin in the HBO television series The Wire, the leader of a West Baltimore drug organization, played by Wood Harris.
Axeman of New Orleans
The Axeman of New Orleans was an unidentified killer who attacked Italian-American grocers and their families in their homes from May 1918 to October 1919, entering through chiseled door panels, using victims' own axes, and sending the 1919 jazz letter. The case was never solved.
Azam Khan (politician)
Mohammad Azam Khan (born 1948, Rampur) is a Samajwadi Party co-founder, ten-time Uttar Pradesh MLA from Rampur Sadar, and former minister with eight portfolios. Distinguished by 111 criminal cases, six convictions, two Sitapur jail stints, and 2022 and 2025 Assembly disqualifications.
Azie Faison
Azie Faison Jr. (AZ), born 1964, Harlem crack-era cocaine distributor and partner of Rich Porter and Alpo Martinez; survived a 1987 shooting, later rapper, author of Game Over, and basis for Paid in Full's Ace.
Aztec law
Aztec law governed the Nahuatl-speaking city-states of the Valley of Mexico, most prominently Tenochtitlan, Texcoco, and Tlacopan, in the century before the Spanish conquest of 1521.
B visa
B visa: US nonimmigrant visitor visa, B-1 business and B-2 tourism/medical, usually issued as B-1/B-2. $185 fee, DS-160, interview; $750 expedite pilot and visa bonds up to $20,000 distinguish it.
B. L. Winmill
B. Lynn Winmill, born 1952 in Blackfoot, Idaho, is a senior United States district judge for the District of Idaho, appointed by President Clinton in 1995.
B. N. Rau
Sir Benegal Narsing Rau (1887–1953), Indian Civil Service officer and judge, was Constitutional Adviser to India's Constituent Assembly and prepared the October 1947 first draft Constitution; later India's UN representative and first Indian judge on the International Court of Justice.
Ba'athist Syrian Captagon industry
The Ba'athist Syrian Captagon industry was the Assad regime's state-sponsored captagon (fenethylline) production and trafficking apparatus, supplying about 80 percent of Middle East seizures and billions of dollars in revenue until the regime's fall in December 2024.
Baba Anujka (Баба Анујка)
Baba Anujka (Баба Анујка), born Ana Drakšin/Ana Dee, was a Vladimirovac poison seller in Banat, Serbia, tried 1914 (acquitted) and 1929 (15 years) for arsenic poisonings attributed to 50-150 victims.
Baby Face Nelson
Baby Face Nelson, alias of Lester Gillis (1908–1934), Chicago-born bank robber, John Dillinger's partner, killer of three FBI agents including W. Carter Baum, and Public Enemy No. 1, killed at Barrington, Illinois, in 1934.
Baby M
Baby M (Melissa Stern, born 1986) was the New Jersey child at the center of the landmark American surrogacy-custody case between biochemist William Stern and surrogate Mary Beth Whitehead, whose $10,000 contract was voided by the state Supreme Court in 1988.
Back-to-back life sentences
Back-to-back life sentences are consecutive life terms for multiple crimes, served one after another to delay or defeat parole, governed in the US by 18 U.S.C. § 3584 and varying state discretion rules.
Background check
Background check: review of a person's criminal, employment, credit, or other records for hiring, housing, licensing, or firearms decisions. Also called tenant screening or pre-employment screening; in the US governed by the FCRA and EEOC antidiscrimination rules, with documented accuracy problems in commercial reports.
Backpacker murders
The backpacker murders: seven young travellers (three German, two British, two Australian) killed 1989–1992 in Belanglo State Forest, NSW; Ivan Milat convicted 1996, seven life sentences, died 2019.
Bacon Brothers (gangsters)
The Bacon brothers, Jonathan, Jarrod, and Jamie, were Abbotsford, British Columbia gangsters linked by police to the Red Scorpions; Jonathan was killed in Kelowna in 2011, Jarrod imprisoned for a cocaine conspiracy, and Jamie convicted in the Surrey Six murders.
Bad Blood (TV series)
Bad Blood (2017–2018) is a Canadian crime drama created by Simon Barry and Michael Konyves, based on Business or Blood, dramatizing Montreal's Rizzuto mafia family; two seasons, 14 episodes, starring Anthony LaPaglia and Kim Coates on Citytv and Netflix.
Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans
Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans is a 2009 American crime film directed by Werner Herzog and starring Nicolas Cage as a corrupt, drug-addicted New Orleans police lieutenant.
Bada Rajan
Bada Rajan (Rajan Mahadev Nair), Mumbai underworld don of Tilak Nagar, Chembur; ran cinema ticket black-marketing and hafta rackets, mentored Chhota Rajan, allied with Dawood Ibrahim, and was shot dead outside Esplanade Court in 1983.
Baekdu Mountain Boundary Monument
The Baekdu Mountain Boundary Monument (백두산정계비), also called the Mukedeng stele, was a stone marker erected in 1712 recording the Joseon–Qing border at Baekdu Mountain; it vanished in 1931.
Bail
Bail: money or conditions set by a court to secure a criminal defendant's release before trial. Also called cash bail or pretrial release. Distinguished by English common-law origins, the 1966 and 1984 U.S. Bail Reform Acts, and Illinois's 2023 abolition of cash bail.
Bail bondsman
A bail bondsman, or bail bond agent, guarantees a criminal defendant's court appearance for a nonrefundable fee, an occupation existing almost entirely in the United States.
Bail in the United States
Bail in the United States is the pretrial release system based on money or conditions guaranteeing court appearance. Key facts: Eighth Amendment limits, 24 states with expanded preventive detention, Illinois first to abolish cash bail in 2023, mixed reform evidence.
Bailiff
Bailiff: officer executing court orders, from Old French baillif (c. 1300). Covers medieval English estate and Crown officers, modern England and Wales enforcement agents, US courtroom bailiffs, and the French commissaire de justice.
Bailiff Byrd
Bailiff Byrd is Petri Hawkins Byrd (born 1957, Brooklyn), the only bailiff on Judge Judy for all 25 seasons (1996–2021), a former real New York court officer with Sheindlin, later bailiff on Tribunal Justice.
Bain family murders
Bain family murders: killings of Robin, Margaret, Laniet, Arawa, and Stephen Bain in Dunedin, New Zealand, on 20 June 1994. David Bain was convicted in 1995, cleared by the Privy Council in 2007, acquitted at a 2009 retrial, and denied compensation in 2016.
Bait-and-switch
Bait-and-switch: deceptive sales practice of advertising a product the seller never intends to sell, then switching customers to a pricier alternative; illegal under FTC Act Section 5, distinct from loss leaders, and prohibited in Canada and the UK.
Bajinder Singh
Bajinder Singh, also called the 'Yashu Yashu' pastor, is a self-styled Punjab Christian faith healer, founder of the Church of Glory and Wisdom, convicted in 2025 in a 2018 rape case and sentenced to life imprisonment.
Baker McKenzie
Baker McKenzie, founded 1949 in Chicago as Baker & McKenzie, is a global law firm with over 70 offices in 40+ countries, $3.64bn revenue, London its largest office, chaired by Sunny Mann.
Baker v Canada (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration)
Baker v Canada (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration), [1999] 2 SCR 817, 1999 SCC decision in Mavis Baker's humanitarian and compassionate immigration appeal, led by L'Heureux-Dubé J on children's best interests, bias, and reasons.