9,901 articles
Deed
Deed: a formal written legal document, signed, witnessed, and delivered, that passes or creates interests in property, notably land. Covers English law execution formalities, electronic signatures, and deeds versus title registration.
Deed of trust (real estate)
A deed of trust is a US real-estate security instrument used in some states instead of a mortgage, with three parties (trustor, beneficiary, trustee, usually a title company), and a power-of-sale clause that permits nonjudicial foreclosure without a court order.
Deep Water (TV series)
Deep Water (2016 SBS miniseries, distinct from the 2019 British Lake District drama): four-part Australian crime drama by Blackfella Films, directed by Shawn Seet, starring Yael Stone and Noah Taylor, inspired by 1980s–90s Sydney gay hate murders, paired with the documentary Deep Water: The Real Story.
Defamation
Defamation: a false statement harming reputation, civilly actionable as libel (written) or slander (spoken). Key differences include the U.S. actual-malice standard for public figures, UK burden-of-proof rules, and anti-libel-tourism reforms.
Defamation Act
Defamation Act statutes (UK 1996, UK 2013, Ireland 2009, Ireland amended 2026) reform defamation law: serious harm thresholds, truth and public-interest defences, jury abolition, and anti-SLAPP measures.
Defamation Act 2013
Defamation Act 2013 (c. 26), UK statute reforming defamation law in England and Wales, in force 1 January 2014: serious harm threshold, statutory defences of truth, honest opinion, and public interest, website operator and peer-reviewed publication protections, jury presumption removed.
Defamation in Australia
Defamation in Australia: a common law tort, harmonized since 2006 by uniform state and territory Defamation Acts based on Model Defamation Provisions, with a one-year limitation period, a $250,000 general damages cap, a serious-harm threshold from 2021, and 2023-24 digital intermediary reforms.
Defamation law of New Zealand
The defamation law of New Zealand is the tort law of injury to reputation, grounded in the common law and the Defamation Act 1992, in force since 1993.
Defence of property
Defence of property, or defense of property, is a legal justification allowing reasonable, usually non-deadly force to protect possessions, distinct from self-defense; Katko v. Briney, the MPC, and Canadian Bill C-26 set its limits.
Defences and remedies in defamation law
Defences and remedies in defamation law covers the defenses to a defamation claim, such as truth, honest opinion, and privilege, and the remedies, chiefly damages and injunctions.
Defences to nuisance
Defences to nuisance are the legal answers to claims of unreasonable interference with land or public comfort, ranging from complete defenses like statutory authority and prescription to limits on remedies.
Defend Trade Secrets Act
The Defend Trade Secrets Act of 2016 is a United States federal statute, enacted May 11, 2016, creating a federal civil cause of action for trade secret misappropriation.
Defendant
Defendant: the party against whom a proceeding is brought; the accused in criminal cases, the person or entity sued by the plaintiff in civil cases, and the respondent in certain actions, appeals, and family law.
Defender of the bond
Defender of the bond (defensor vinculi): a Catholic tribunal official required in every marriage nullity case, appointed by the bishop to argue against nullity, write animadversions, and appeal adverse sentences.
Defenses to divorce
Defenses to divorce: connivance, collusion, condonation, and recrimination, the classic bars a spouse could raise against a fault-based divorce petition, their origins, and their abolition under no-fault divorce.
Defensible space
Defensible space is a model of crime prevention through urban design, introduced by architect Oscar Newman in his 1972 book Defensible Space: Crime Prevention Through Urban Design.
Deferred adjudication
Deferred adjudication: a US criminal procedure, also called deferred judgment or deferred disposition, in which a court withholds a guilt finding after a guilty plea, places the defendant on community supervision, and dismisses charges on successful completion.
Defund the police
Defund the police is a US political slogan from the 2020 George Floyd protests, rooted in prison abolitionism, demanding police budget cuts and reallocation to social services; many cities reversed the cuts and the phrase became a partisan campaign issue.
Del Águila family killings
Del Águila family killings: Murcia, Spain, December 1965 to January 1966, when 12-year-old Piedad Martínez del Águila poisoned four younger siblings with cyanide rat poison and cleaning tablets in milk; she was placed in the Oblatas convent.
Delaware General Corporation Law
Delaware General Corporation Law (DGCL), Title 8, Chapter 1 of the Delaware Code: the 1899 enabling statute governing over 2 million corporations, including two-thirds of the Fortune 500, amended by SB 21 in 2025.
Delay, Deny, Defend
Delay, deny, defend is a phrase for insurer claims tactics, also Jay Feinman's 2010 book on insurance practices. Covers McKinsey-driven claims redesign, denial and appeal data, bad-faith law, and the 2024 UnitedHealthcare shooting reference.
Delgamuukw v British Columbia
Delgamuukw v British Columbia ([1997] 3 S.C.R. 1010) is the Supreme Court of Canada's 1997 Aboriginal title ruling, arising from the Gitxsan and Wet'suwet'en hereditary chiefs' 1984 claim over 58,000 km2 of northwest British Columbia; it defined Aboriginal title as sui generis, set the proof test, and barred provincial extinguishment.
Delian League
Delian League (Confederacy of Delos), founded 478/7 BCE under Athenian hegemony with treasury on Delos; an anti-Persian alliance of Greek city-states paying phoros tribute that evolved into the Athenian empire and dissolved in 404 BCE.
Delict
Delict is the civil-law category of private wrongs, the Roman-law counterpart of common-law tort, covering wrongful acts like theft and property damage remedied by civil damages; rooted in the Twelve Tables and lex Aquilia, used today in Scotland and South Africa.
Delict (Scots law)
Delict is the Scots law of civil liability for wrongdoing, the counterpart of English tort law. Rooted in Roman law and the Institutional writers, it uses the general action for reparation and recognizes no nominate delict of negligence.
Delissa A. Ridgway
Delissa A. Ridgway, born Delissa Anne Ridgway, is an American jurist serving as a senior judge of the United States Court of International Trade since 2019.
Delroy Grant
Delroy Grant, the "Night Stalker", a Jamaica-born British serial rapist and burglar who attacked 203 elderly people in south-east London from 1991 to 2009, evading capture after a 1999 police name mix-up until his 2009 arrest and 2011 conviction.
Delwar Hossain Sayeedi
Delwar Hossain Sayeedi (Delawar Hossain Sayedee), Jamaat-e-Islami Nayeb-e-Ameer and Islamic preacher, convicted by Bangladesh's International Crimes Tribunal in 2013 of 1971 war crimes; death sentence commuted in 2014 to life imprisonment; died in custody 14 August 2023.
Demesne
Demesne: land a lord or owner kept and worked for his own use rather than granting to tenants; in medieval England the manorial lord's in-hand land, in royal form the Crown's direct estates.
Demetrius Terrence Frazier
Demetrius Terrence Frazier (born 1972) was an Alabama death row inmate executed by nitrogen hypoxia on February 6, 2025, for the 1991 capital murder of Pauline Brown in Birmingham, Jefferson County; he was also serving a Michigan life sentence for murdering Crystal Kendrick, 14.