9,901 articles
Write-off
Write-off: colloquial term for a tax deduction, an amount subtracted from taxable income for costs, losses, or depreciation; distinct from a credit, and also used for accounting write-offs and cancellation of uncollectible tax debt.
Wrongful conviction of David Camm
David Camm, a former Indiana State Police trooper, was convicted of the 2000 Camm family murders. The case is a cited example of a wrongful conviction based on flawed bloodstain pattern analysis.
Wrongful conviction of Peter Sullivan
Peter Sullivan was wrongly convicted in 1987 of the 1986 murder of Diane Sindall in Bebington, Merseyside, based on bite mark and circumstantial evidence. His conviction was quashed on 13 May 2025 after DNA testing excluded him, after 38 years in prison.
Wrongful death claim
Wrongful death claim: statutory civil action by survivors or a decedent's estate against one whose wrongful act, neglect, or default caused a death; distinct from survival actions and criminal prosecution, from Lord Campbell's Act 1846 to US state statutes.
Wrongful dismissal
Wrongful dismissal, also called wrongful termination or wrongful discharge, is dismissal in breach of the employment contract, typically without proper notice; distinct from unfair dismissal, it is judged on contract terms and differs across UK, Canadian, and US at-will frameworks.
Wrongful execution
Wrongful execution is the execution of a person wrongly convicted of a capital crime. Key measures: 203 U.S. death-row exonerations since 1973, one exoneration per 8 executions, and DPIC's list of executed people with credible innocence claims.
Wrotham Park Estate Co Ltd v Parkside Homes Ltd
Wrotham Park Estate Co Ltd v Parkside Homes Ltd [1974] 1 WLR 798: English Chancery case; Brightman J refused demolition of covenant-breaching houses and awarded 5% of the developer's profit, founding the "Wrotham Park" negotiating damages measure.
Wuwei Chanyu
Wuwei Chanyu (烏維單于) was a Xiongnu supreme ruler who reigned 114–105 BC, successor of Yizhixie Chanyu; his son Wushilu, the Child Chanyu, succeeded him, and his diplomacy with Han envoy Wang Wu was deceptive.
WWF trademark dispute
WWF trademark dispute: World Wide Fund for Nature (World Wildlife Fund) versus the World Wrestling Federation over the initials WWF; the 1994 settlement agreement, the 2001 English court ruling, and the wrestling company's 2002 rebrand as WWE.
Xavier Rodriguez
Xavier Rodriguez (born 1961) is an American jurist serving as a United States district judge for the Western District of Texas since 2003, appointed by President George W. Bush.
Xenophobia in South Africa
Xenophobia in South Africa: hostility and recurrent violence against foreign nationals, with major episodes in 2008 (62 dead), 2015, 2019 and the 2026 March and March crisis.
Xu Shoulan v. Peng Yu
Xu Shoulan v. Peng Yu (彭宇案), Nanjing 2007 civil case: elderly woman sued the man who helped her after a fall; the 'common sense' first-instance judgment by judge Wang Hao became China's most criticized ruling on Good Samaritan liability.
Xue Hanqin (薛捍勤)
Xue Hanqin (薛捍勤), born 1955 in Shanghai, is China's judge on the International Court of Justice since 2010 and its Vice-President 2018–2021, formerly China's Ambassador to the Netherlands and an International Law Commission member.
XXXTentacion murder trial
The XXXTentacion murder trial, also called the RIVA Motorsports killing case, ended March 20, 2023 with Boatwright, Williams, and Newsome convicted of first-degree murder; Allen testified; all three got life sentences.
Y. V. Chandrachud (यशवंत विष्णू चंद्रचूड)
Y. V. Chandrachud (यशवंत विष्णू चंद्रचूड), Chief Justice of India 1978–1985 and longest-serving CJI at 7 years 4 months; ADM Jabalpur majority judge, author of the Shah Bano judgment; father of CJI D.Y. Chandrachud.
Yakuza
Yakuza (boryokudan, gokudō): Japan's organized crime syndicates, active since the 17th century, structured on oyabun-kobun bonds, led by the Yamaguchi-gumi, Sumiyoshi-kai, and Inagawa-kai, legally never banned but restricted since the 1992 Botaiho.
Yamada Akiyoshi
Yamada Akiyoshi (山田顕義, 1844–1892) was a Japanese army officer and statesman who served as Japan's first Minister of Justice and founded the Japan Law School, predecessor of Nihon University.
Yamaguchi-gumi (山口組)
Yamaguchi-gumi (山口組), Japan's largest yakuza syndicate, founded 1915 in Kobe by Yamaguchi Harukichi as a dock labor-broking group; designated bōryokudan since 1992, split in 2015 forming the Kobe Yamaguchi-gumi, with about 3,100 members at end-2025.
Yang Sung-tae (양성태)
Yang Sung-tae (양성태), 15th Chief Justice of Korea's Supreme Court (2011–2017), led judicial reforms including the Judicial Policy Research Institute and Seoul Bankruptcy Court, and in 2026 became the first former Chief Justice criminally convicted, in the judicial power abuse case.
Yang Xinhai (杨新海)
Yang Xinhai, also known as Yang Zhiya, was a Chinese serial killer convicted of 67 murders across four provinces from about 2000 to 2003 and executed in 2004.
Yaser Abdel Said
Yaser Abdel Said (ياسر عبد السيد), Egyptian-born American taxi driver convicted of capital murder for the 2008 shooting deaths of his daughters Amina and Sarah in Irving, Texas; FBI Ten Most Wanted fugitive #504, captured 2020, sentenced to life without parole.
Yashwant Varma
Justice Yashwant Varma (born 1969), judge of the Allahabad and Delhi High Courts, resigned in April 2026 after a parliamentary committee found all three charges proved in the March 2025 burnt-cash case at his Delhi residence.
Yassa
Yassa (Mongolian jasagh, Ikh Zasag) is the term for the edicts of Genghis Khan and his successors, supposedly a written law code whose existence scholars now question.
Yazoo land scandal
The Yazoo land scandal was a corrupt 1795 sale by Georgia's legislature of 35 million acres in present-day Alabama and Mississippi for $500,000, arranged through bribery and rescinded in 1796.
Year and a day rule
The year and a day rule was a common law rule barring homicide charges if the victim died more than a year and a day after the act.
Yellow-dog contract
Yellow-dog contract: an early-20th-century US employment agreement requiring workers to promise not to join a union; upheld in Hitchman v. Mitchell (1917), outlawed by the Norris-LaGuardia Act of 1932 and the NLRA.
Yemeni unification
Yemeni unification: the May 22, 1990 merger of the Yemen Arab Republic (North Yemen) and the People's Democratic Republic of Yemen (South Yemen) into the Republic of Yemen, followed by the 1994 civil war and continuing southern secessionist disputes.
Yodok concentration camp (요덕 제15호 관리소)
Yodok (Kwanliso No. 15, 요덕 제15호 관리소) was North Korea's most documented political prison camp in Yodok County, South Hamgyong, with a Total Control Zone and a unique Revolutionizing Zone; documented via testimony and satellite imagery, reportedly closed 2014–2019 and later converted to housing.
Yokohama foreign settlement
The Yokohama foreign settlement (外国人居留地) was the district of the port of Yokohama where foreigners lived and traded under the Ansei treaties from 1859 until the settlements were abolished in 1899.
Yolanda Saldívar
Yolanda Saldívar (born 1960, San Antonio) is the former nurse, Selena fan club president, and boutique manager who murdered the Tejano singer on March 31, 1995; convicted of first-degree murder in Houston in 1995, serving life in Gatesville, Texas, parole denied March 2025, next review 2030.