9,901 articles
Specialized international law journals
Specialized international law journals are scholarly periodicals covering the law of the sea, environmental and climate law, and space law, including the Journal of Space Law, founded in 1973.
Specialty and affinity bar associations in the United States
Specialty and affinity bar associations in the United States are voluntary lawyer groups organized around shared identity, such as women's or LGBT bars, or a practice area rather than geography.
Specific Claims Tribunal of Canada
The Specific Claims Tribunal of Canada is an independent body of Superior Court judges making binding decisions on First Nations claims against the federal Crown, established in 2008.
Speed Freak Killers
Speed Freak Killers: Wesley Shermantine and Loren Herzog, meth-fueled serial killer duo of San Joaquin County, California, 1980s-1990s; convicted of four murders, suspected of up to 72; Herzog died by suicide in 2012, Shermantine died in prison in 2026.
Spencer Perceval
Spencer Perceval (1762-1812), Tory Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from October 1809, lawyer and evangelical; the only British Prime Minister assassinated, shot by John Bellingham in the Commons lobby on 11 May 1812.
Spencer's Case
Spencer's Case (1583), King's Bench, 5 Co. Rep. 16a, is the landmark English decision on covenants running with leasehold land: touch and concern, intent, and privity of estate bind assignees.
Spendthrift trust
Spendthrift trust: a US trust restraining a beneficiary from transferring the beneficial interest and blocking creditors from reaching it before distribution. Exception creditors (child/spousal support, federal tax liens) can still attach; DAPTs exist in about 20 states.
Spite fence
Spite fence: a fence or fence-like structure (including tree rows and hedges) built maliciously to annoy a neighboring owner. Statutory heights vary: 5 feet (Kentucky), 6 feet (Indiana, Massachusetts), 10 feet (California).
Sports agent
Sports agent: representative who negotiates playing contracts, endorsements, and financial planning for athletes. Began with Christy Walsh and C. C. Pyle in the 1920s; regulated by the UAAA, SPARTA, and players-association certification.
Spousal liability for debts of the other spouse
Spousal liability for debts of the other spouse covers when a creditor can collect one spouse's debt from the other; marriage alone usually creates no liability.
Spousal privilege
Spousal privilege (marital privilege): evidence-law rule protecting confidential communications between spouses and limiting compelled adverse spousal testimony; reshaped in the US by Trammel v. United States (1980), with exceptions for intra-family crimes.
Spousal support waiver
A spousal support waiver is a clause in a prenuptial, postnuptial, or separation agreement in which a spouse gives up the right to seek alimony after divorce.
Spree killer
Spree killer: a multiple-homicide offender who kills several victims at two or more locations in a short, continuous episode without a cooling-off period; FBI dropped the category in 2005, but researchers such as Safarik and Ramsland still classify spree killers separately from serial and mass murderers.
Springfield Three
Springfield Three: Sherrill Levitt, Suzanne Streeter, and Stacy McCall, who vanished overnight June 6–7, 1992, from Levitt's home at 1717 East Delmar Street, Springfield, Missouri. Unsolved; no remains found, no charges, Robert Craig Cox the named person of interest.
Squatting
Squatting, also called adverse possession, is occupying property without permission. Covers criminal law in England and Wales, adverse possession requirements, Roman origins, homelessness links, and comparative legal responses.
Sri Srinivasan
Sri Srinivasan (Srikanth Srinivasan), born 1967 in Chandigarh, India, is chief judge of the D.C. Circuit since 2020; former Principal Deputy Solicitor General, Obama appointee confirmed 2013, once shortlisted for the Supreme Court.
Stabbing
Stabbing: assault or homicide with a pointed or bladed weapon, counted in UK statistics as knife-enabled or sharp-instrument offences; 54,587 recorded offences in YE Dec 2024, 41% of homicides, concentrated in London.
Stabbing of George Harrison
The stabbing of George Harrison: on 30 December 1999 Michael Abram, a schizophrenic man from Liverpool, broke into Friar Park and stabbed the former Beatle, puncturing a lung; he was found not guilty by reason of insanity in 2000 and detained, then released in 2002.
Stabilisation Force in Bosnia and Herzegovina
Stabilisation Force (SFOR), NATO-led peace enforcement force in Bosnia and Herzegovina, 20 December 1996 to 2 December 2004, under UNSCR 1088; succeeded IFOR, about 31,000 troops shrinking to 7,000, handed over to EUFOR Operation Althea.
Stacey Castor
Stacey Ruth Castor, the New York "Black Widow," convicted in 2009 of antifreeze-poisoning her second husband David Castor and attempting to murder daughter Ashley Wallace; sentenced to 51 1/3 years to life, died in prison 2016.
Stacey D. Neumann
Stacey D. Neumann, born 1978, is an American jurist serving as a United States district judge in Maine since 2024; appointed by President Biden, she became the court's twentieth district judge.
Stacey Humphreys
Stacey Ian Humphreys is a Georgia death row inmate convicted of the 2003 murders of real estate agents Cyndi Williams and Lori Brown in Cobb County. Scheduled executions in December 2025 and September 2026 were both stayed over clemency board conflicts, juror misconduct claims, and the Survivor Justice Act.
Staci M. Yandle
Staci Michelle Yandle is an American jurist serving as a United States district judge for the Southern District of Illinois since 2014, appointed by President Barack Obama.
Stack v Dowden
Stack v Dowden [2007] UKHL 17, House of Lords cohabitation property case: joint-names homes start at equal beneficial shares, heavy burden to displace; Dowden won 65/35; developed by Jones v Kernott.
Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act
The Stafford Act (Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act, P.L. 100-707, 42 U.S.C. 5121 et seq.) is the 1988 U.S. statute authorizing presidential major disaster and emergency declarations, FEMA-administered aid, and the Disaster Relief Fund.
Stalking
Stalking: a pattern of repeated harassing or threatening conduct, including following, surveillance, unwanted contact, and GPS or spyware tracking, that causes fear or substantial emotional distress; affects about 1 in 5 US women and 1 in 10 men, criminalized in all 50 states.
Stambovsky v. Ackley
Stambovsky v. Ackley, 169 A.D.2d 254 (N.Y. App. Div. 1991), the "Ghostbusters ruling," held a Nyack, New York house legally haunted because seller Helen Ackley had publicized its ghosts, entitling buyer Jeffrey Stambovsky to rescind his $650,000 contract despite caveat emptor.
Stamp duty
Stamp duty: a tax on documents transferring property, shares, or securities, named for embossed revenue stamps first used in England in 1694; now charged on transaction value, e.g. UK SDLT and Singapore BSD/SSD/ABSD.
Stand-your-ground law
Stand-your-ground law: US self-defense statute removing the duty to retreat outside the home, distinct from castle doctrine. Utah 1994 first; Florida 2005 model via ALEC; 35 states by 2025; associated with 8-11% firearm homicide increases.
Standard form contract
Standard form contract (also contract of adhesion, boilerplate, AGB): pre-written take-it-or-leave-it terms dominating business and consumer contracting; enforced via notice and opportunity to read, regulated by unfair-terms laws in the EU and Australia.