9,901 articles
Scott M. Matheson, Jr.
Scott M. Matheson, Jr., also known as Scott Milne Matheson, Jr., is an American jurist serving as a United States circuit judge of the Tenth Circuit since 2010.
Scott Pruitt
Scott Pruitt (Edward Scott Pruitt) is an American lawyer and Republican politician, Oklahoma attorney general 2011–2017 and 14th EPA Administrator confirmed February 17, 2017, who resigned in 2018 amid ethics scandals.
Scott Thorson
Scott Thorson was an American dancer and animal trainer, Liberace's live-in lover from the late 1970s until 1982, whose $113 million palimony suit became one of the most publicized in US history.
Scott W. Skavdahl
Scott W. Skavdahl, born Scott Wesley Skavdahl, is a United States district judge for the District of Wyoming since 2011, appointed by President Barack Obama.
Scottsboro Boys
The Scottsboro Boys: nine Black teenagers falsely accused of raping two white women on an Alabama freight train in 1931; eight death sentences, Powell v. Alabama, Norris v. Alabama, recantations, paroles, and 2013 posthumous pardons.
Scourge
Scourge: a multi-thonged whip (Latin flagrum, flagellum) used for flogging as Roman punishment, religious self-mortification, judicial whipping, and colonial discipline; still legal in dozens of countries today.
Scream copycat crimes
Scream copycat crimes are real offenses inspired by the 1996 horror film Scream and its sequels, including the 1998 California Padilla-Ramirez case, a 2002 French case, and a matricide by a 16-year-old who said the film gave him the idea.
Sde Teiman gang rape
Sde Teiman gang rape: alleged 2024 sexual assault of a Palestinian detainee by IDF Force 100 reservists at the Sde Teiman camp in the Negev; nine arrested, five indicted in 2025, charges dropped in 2026.
Sean Combs sexual misconduct allegations
Sean Combs sexual misconduct allegations: Cassie Ventura's November 2023 sex-trafficking suit, the 2024 federal indictment, the July 2025 mixed verdict (two Mann Act convictions, trafficking acquittals), and 50-plus civil suits.
Sean D. Jordan
Sean D. Jordan is an American jurist serving as a United States district judge for the Eastern District of Texas since 2019, appointed by President Donald Trump.
Sean Sellers
Sean Sellers (1969–1999), Oklahoma murderer executed February 4, 1999 for three killings committed at 16; the only post-1976 US execution of a 16-year-old offender, diagnosed with dissociative identity disorder after trial.
Sean Vincent Gillis
Sean Vincent Gillis (born 1962) is an American serial killer, the 'Other Baton Rouge Killer,' who murdered eight women around Baton Rouge, Louisiana, 1994-2004; arrested by DNA and tire-track evidence in 2004, he is serving multiple life sentences at Louisiana State Penitentiary.
Search warrant
A search warrant is a written authorization signed by a judge that permits law enforcement to search a specified person, place, or vehicle for criminal evidence. It requires probable cause.
Seat belt legislation
Seat belt legislation mandates belt use by vehicle occupants and defines enforcement type. Primary laws allow stops solely for non-use; secondary laws require another violation first. First enacted in Victoria, Australia, 1970.
Sebastián Marroquín
Sebastián Marroquín, born Juan Pablo Escobar (1977), is Pablo Escobar's only son, an Argentine-based architect, writer, and speaker who asks forgiveness for his father's victims, wrote Pablo Escobar: My Father, and campaigns against glamorized drug-trade portrayals.
Sebastián Marset
Sebastián Marset, also known as "Dor," is an alleged Uruguayan drug trafficker and leader of the First Uruguayan Cartel. He was captured in Bolivia in 2026.
Secession
Secession is a territory's unilateral withdrawal from a state to form a new one. International law neither prohibits it nor grants a right to it; the 2010 ICJ Kosovo advisory opinion and the Quebec Reference frame the debate.
Second Amendment sanctuary
Second Amendment sanctuary: a US state, county, or city resolution or law pledging nonenforcement of gun-control measures deemed unconstitutional; borrowed from immigration sanctuary cities; about 1,200 local adopters; generally no formal legal effect.
Second Amendment to the United States Constitution
The Second Amendment to the United States Constitution, ratified in 1791 as the second of the ten Bill of Rights amendments, states that "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."
Second Bill of Rights
The Second Bill of Rights, or Economic Bill of Rights, was Franklin D. Roosevelt's January 11, 1944 State of the Union proposal listing eight economic and social rights, from a useful job to medical care and education; never enacted, it inspired the UDHR.
Second impeachment trial of Donald Trump
Second impeachment trial of Donald Trump, the February 9–13, 2021 Senate trial on incitement of insurrection after January 6; first trial of a former president, presided over by Patrick Leahy, acquitted 57–43 with seven Republicans voting guilty.
Second mortgage
Second mortgage (junior lien): a loan secured by a home that already secures another loan; includes home equity loans and HELOCs, paid second in foreclosure, priced higher, used for piggyback purchases, home improvement, and debt consolidation.
Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights
The Second Optional Protocol to the ICCPR (ICCPR-OP2), adopted by UN General Assembly resolution 44/128 on 15 December 1989, commits states parties to abolish the death penalty, with a single wartime reservation allowed; 92 parties as of 2026.
Second Partition of Poland
The Second Partition of Poland (Polish: II rozbiór Polski) was the 1793 division of Commonwealth territory between Russia and Prussia, stripping it of about 300,000 km² and over 3 million people.
Second Treaty of Brömsebro (1645)
Second Treaty of Brömsebro (Second Peace of Brömsebro, Freden i Brömsebro), signed 13 August 1645 between Sweden and Denmark-Norway, ended the Torstenson War: Denmark ceded Gotland, Ösel, Jämtland, Härjedalen and Bremen-Verden, pledged Halland for 30 years, and lost Sound toll revenue.
Second Treaty of Buffalo Creek
Second Treaty of Buffalo Creek (Treaty with the New York Indians, 1838): US treaty of January 15, 1838 trading Green Bay and New York lands for 1,824,000 acres west of Missouri; secured by fraud, modified by the 1842 Seneca treaty.
Secret treaty
Secret treaty: an international agreement whose existence or contents are withheld from publics or legislatures. Central to pre-1914 diplomacy (Straits agreement 1915, Sykes-Picot); opposed by Wilson's open diplomacy and curtailed by League Covenant Article 18 and UN Charter Article 102 registration rules.
Secretaries and administrative staff of the Supreme Court of the United States
The secretaries and administrative staff of the US Supreme Court are the career non-lawyer personnel who run the justices' chambers, including judicial assistants, messengers, and the Counselor to the Chief Justice.
Section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act
Section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act was the repealed federal hate-speech provision banning telephone and Internet messages likely to expose identifiable groups to hatred or contempt; upheld in Taylor, repealed by Bill C-304 effective June 26, 2014.
Section 230
Section 230 (47 U.S.C. § 230), part of the 1996 Communications Decency Act, shields US online platforms and users from liability for third-party content, with exceptions for federal criminal, intellectual property, and sex trafficking law.