9,901 articles
Sui generis
Sui generis, Latin for "of its own kind," is a legal term for an independent classification outside existing categories; used for unique IP rights like the EU database right, Aboriginal title, and the EU's legal order.
Sui iuris
Sui iuris, Latin for "of one's own right", is a legal term for a person not subject to another's authority, from Roman patria potestas law to modern canon law's autonomous Churches sui iuris.
Suicide of Audrie Pott
The suicide of Audrie Pott was the 2012 death of a 15-year-old Saratoga High School sophomore who killed herself eight days after being sexually assaulted at a house party.
Suicide of Joe Gliniewicz
Suicide of Joe Gliniewicz: Fox Lake, Illinois lieutenant Charles Joseph "G.I. Joe" Gliniewicz shot himself on September 1, 2015, staging his death as a murder to hide seven years of embezzlement from the Police Explorer program.
Suicide of Ricardo Alfonso Cerna
Ricardo Alfonso Cerna (1956-2003), Guatemalan immigrant, shot San Bernardino County Deputy Michael Parham during a December 19, 2003 traffic stop in Muscoy, California, then killed himself with an undetected .45-caliber handgun in a sheriff's interview room, on videotape.
Suicide of Vince Foster
Suicide of Vince Foster: Deputy White House Counsel Vincent W. Foster Jr. died by gunshot at Fort Marcy Park, Virginia, July 20, 1993. Five investigations (Park Police, DOJ, House, Senate, Starr) ruled it suicide; conspiracy theories and the Favish FOIA case followed.
Suicide watch
Suicide watch is heightened monitoring of incarcerated people at imminent risk of suicide, from 5–15 minute checks to constant observation, often with tear-resistant smocks and padded cells; execution failures and solitary placement are documented harms.
Sukumara Kurup
Sukumara Kurup (സുകുമാരക്കുറുപ്പ്, born Gopalakrishna Kurup) is Kerala's longest-absconding fugitive, prime accused in the 1984 murder of film representative KJ Chacko in a Rs 8 lakh insurance-fraud plot; untried and untraced for over 40 years.
Sullivan & Cromwell
Sullivan & Cromwell LLP (S&C), founded 1879 in New York, is a multinational law firm with 1,000+ lawyers in 14 offices, led by co-chairs Giuffra and Miller, ranked first by value in global M&A over 20 years.
Sumiyoshi-kai (住吉会)
The Sumiyoshi-kai (住吉会) is Japan's second-largest designated yakuza group, headquartered in Akasaka, Tokyo, a Tokyo gambling-association federation descended from the Meiji-era Sumiyoshi-ikka, renamed in 1991.
Summary (law)
Summary (law): summary abatement, removal of a nuisance without judicial proceedings, sometimes without notice or hearing, grounded in common law and Lawton v. Steele, distinguished from administrative abatement.
Summary execution
Summary execution: killing as punishment without full due process, defined by UN Special Rapporteur Amos Wako, prohibited by the 1989 UN Principles on extra-legal, arbitrary and summary executions, with no superior-orders defense in war or emergency.
Summary judgment
Summary judgment: a civil procedure deciding a claim or issue without trial. U.S. federal Rule 56 requires no genuine dispute of material fact; UK CPR Part 24 uses the no-real-prospect test.
Summary Jurisdiction Act 1884
Summary Jurisdiction Act 1884 (47 & 48 Vict. c. 43), also the Summary Jurisdiction (Repeal) Act 1884: UK act of 7 August 1884 repealing obsolete pre-1884 procedure statutes for England and Wales and clarifying the definition of a court of summary jurisdiction.
Summary offence
A summary offence is a minor criminal offence tried only by a magistrate without a jury, as in England and Wales magistrates' courts, Canada's summary conviction offences, and Australia's Local Courts, with six-month prosecution time limits and reduced police powers.
Summis desiderantes affectibus
Summis desiderantes affectibus, 1484 papal bull of Pope Innocent VIII favoring witch trials, associated with Kramer and Sprenger's Malleus maleficarum (1487) and the canon-law inquisitorial procedure later codified in the Carolina of 1532.
Summons
Summons: a court document notifying a defendant of a lawsuit and the deadline to respond; also called writ of summons or claim form. Served with the complaint; nonresponse risks default judgment.
Sumptuary law
Sumptuary laws regulate private expenditure, especially luxury dress, assigning consumption by rank. From ancient Sparta and Rome to medieval Italian and English statutes, enforcement was weak, and their legacy is luxury taxes.
Sun Gym gang
Sun Gym gang: Miami bodybuilders led by Daniel Lugo and Adrian Doorbal who kidnapped and extorted Marc Schiller (1994) and murdered Frank Griga and Krisztina Furton (1995); death sentences commuted to life in 2024; basis of Pain & Gain.
Sun Yee On (新义安)
Sun Yee On (新義安) is one of Hong Kong's largest triad societies, alongside 14K and Wo Shing Wo. Founded from a Chiu Chow workers' trade association, it is linked to drug trafficking, the Sinaloa cartel, and major 2025 police crackdowns.
Sundance Kid
Sundance Kid (Harry Alonzo Longabaugh), American outlaw (1867-1908) and sidekick of Butch Cassidy in the Wild Bunch; named for Sundance, Wyoming jail term; fled to Argentina 1901; died in San Vicente, Bolivia, 1908.
Sundaresh Menon
Sundaresh Menon, Singapore's fourth Chief Justice (6 November 2012 to 26 February 2027), former sixth Attorney-General, Rajah & Tann managing partner, and reformer of the Family Justice Courts, SICC, and Appellate Division.
Sunil R. Harjani
Sunil R. Harjani, also known as Sunil Ramesh Harjani, is an American jurist serving as a United States district judge for the Northern District of Illinois since 2024.
Sunny Balwani
Ramesh "Sunny" Balwani (born 1965) is an American businessman, Theranos president and COO 2009-2016 and Elizabeth Holmes's former partner, convicted in 2022 on 12 fraud counts, sentenced to 155 months, and set for release in 2033.
Sunset provision
Sunset provision (sunset law): a statutory clause that makes a law, agency, program, or regulation expire automatically on a set date unless the legislature formally renews it; pioneered by Colorado in 1976, spread to 36 states by 1982.
Sunshine S. Sykes
Sunshine Suzanne Sykes is an American jurist serving as a United States district judge for the Central District of California since 2022, appointed by President Biden.
Supataev
Супатаев (Supataev) is a Kyrgyz surname. Best known bearer: Abdykasym Supataev (born 1912), Kyrgyz jurist, USSR Supreme Court member 1946–1967 and chairman of the Kyrgyz Supreme Court 1967–1974; also a Bishkek casino and several business and political figures.
Superior orders
Superior orders, or obedience to superior orders, is a criminal-law plea that an act was done on a superior's command. Denied by the Nuremberg and Tokyo charters, it survives at the ICC under Rome Statute Article 33 only for war crimes where the order was not manifestly unlawful.
Supermax prison
A supermax prison is a prison or unit for disruptive or violent inmates, controlled through isolation and restricted movement, first developed in the United States in the 1980s.
Supervised visitation
Supervised visitation, also called supervised access or supervised parenting time, is court-ordered parent-child contact observed by a neutral third person, typically after domestic violence, abuse, or neglect concerns, delivered by professional or nonprofessional providers.