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Execution of Clayton Lockett
The April 29, 2014 botched Oklahoma lethal injection of Clayton Lockett, convicted of the 1999 murder of Stephanie Neiman: failed IV placement, midazolam protocol, 43-minute death, state investigation, and Glossip v. Gross aftermath.
Execution of Kenneth Eugene Smith
Kenneth Eugene Smith, Alabama death-row prisoner convicted of the 1988 murder-for-hire killing of Elizabeth Sennett, was executed January 25, 2024, by nitrogen hypoxia at Holman Correctional Facility, the first U.S. nitrogen gas execution, after a failed 2022 lethal injection attempt.
Execution of Saddam Hussein
Execution of Saddam Hussein: former Iraqi president hanged in Baghdad on December 30, 2006 after the Iraqi High Tribunal convicted him of crimes against humanity for the 1982 Dujail killings; widely criticized as a flawed trial with a sectarian taunting video.
Execution of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto
Execution of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto: Pakistan's first elected prime minister (1973–1977), hanged 4 April 1979 in Rawalpindi after a murder trial under Zia-ul-Haq's martial law; the Supreme Court ruled in 2024 the trial was unfair.
Executioner
Executioner: the official who carries out death sentences. Known in medieval France as bourreau; also called hangman, headsman, or Scottish lockman. Role evolved from varied delegated duties into hereditary, dishonorable trade, then anonymous modern prison personnel.
Executive Office of the President of the United States
The Executive Office of the President (EOP), created by Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1939 under the Reorganization Act of 1939, is the group of staff agencies, including the White House Office and OMB, that supports the President.
Executive Order 11110
Executive Order 11110, signed by John F. Kennedy on June 4, 1963, amended EO 10289 to let the Treasury Secretary issue silver certificates during the phase-out of silver-backed currency; it never targeted the Federal Reserve and was superseded by EO 12608 in 1987.
Executive Order 13769
Executive Order 13769, the first Trump travel ban, was signed January 27, 2017, suspending entry of nationals of seven countries before courts blocked it and Trump revoked it.
Executive Order 13959
Executive Order 13959 (November 12, 2020, Trump): US investment ban barring US persons from buying or selling publicly traded securities of Communist Chinese military companies, as amended by EO 14032 and administered via OFAC's NS-CMIC List.
Executive privilege
Executive privilege, also known as presidential privilege, lets the US President withhold confidential communications from Congress and courts; it is grounded in separation of powers, not the Constitution's text.
Executive Schedule
Executive Schedule (EX): five-level U.S. federal pay system (EX-I to EX-V) for top presidentially appointed officials such as cabinet secretaries; 2026 official rates $184,900–$253,100, with frozen payable rates through January 2026.
Executor
Executor: a person named in a will and confirmed by a probate court to settle a deceased person's estate, collecting assets, paying debts and taxes, and distributing property; distinct from a court-appointed administrator.
Exigent circumstance
Exigent circumstances are Fourth Amendment exceptions letting US police search or enter homes without a warrant during emergencies: hot pursuit, evidence destruction, escape, danger, or emergency aid, per Payton, King, Brigham City, and Case v. Montana.
Exile
Exile is banishment from one's native country by authority, or voluntary departure to escape penalty. Latin exsilium; Roman aquae et ignis interdictio, deportatio, relegatio; Greek homicide flight; later colonial penal transportation, deportation, and political exile.
Exit bans in China
Exit bans in China are government orders barring Chinese or foreign nationals from leaving the PRC, imposed under the 2012 Exit and Entry Administration Law, Civil Procedure Law, and 2023 Counterespionage Law for criminal, civil, and national security grounds.
Expert witness
Expert witness: a court-permitted witness giving fact and opinion evidence. Key US framework is FRE 702 (Daubert gatekeeping, 2023 amendment), rooted in Folkes v. Chadd (1782) and Frye (1923).
Expulsion of Germans from Czechoslovakia
The expulsion of Germans from Czechoslovakia, known in Czech as odsun, removed roughly 3 million Sudeten Germans in 1945 and 1946, sanctioned by the Potsdam Agreement.
Expungement
Expungement is the legal removal of a criminal record from public access, distinct from sealing, set-aside, and pardon. Covers US state variation, federal limits under 18 U.S.C. 3607, Clean Slate automation, the 6.5% uptake gap, and measured wage and recidivism effects.
Extortion
Extortion: obtaining property or benefit through threats, legally distinct from blackmail; at common law an officials' offense, now covered by the Hobbs Act and 18 U.S.C. 873, and a top FBI-reported cybercrime via ransomware and sextortion.
Extradition
Extradition (surrender of a criminal suspect between states) is the formal process by which one country requests another to return a person for prosecution or to serve a sentence, typically under treaty with judicial and executive phases, dual criminality, specialty, and nationality rules.
Extradition law in the United States
Extradition law in the United States: treaty-based international surrender of fugitives under 18 U.S.C. chapter 209, with judicial and State Department phases, dual criminality, political-offense limits, §3196 citizen surrender, and interstate extradition under the Extradition Clause.
Extradition treaties of the United States
Extradition treaties of the United States: the bilateral agreements, anchored in 18 U.S.C. § 3181 and dating to Jay's Treaty of 1794, under which the U.S. surrenders fugitives to over 100 treaty partners, with dual criminality, political offense, and death penalty limits.
Extrajudicial killing
Extrajudicial killing, also called summary or arbitrary execution, is deliberate killing by state agents or allied non-state actors outside judicial process, prohibited under ICCPR Article 6 and monitored by a UN Special Rapporteur.
Extrajudicial killings and forced disappearances in the Philippines
Extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances in the Philippines, centered on Duterte's 2016 "war on drugs" with 6,252 official deaths, ongoing killings under Marcos Jr., and the ICC prosecution of Rodrigo Duterte for murder as a crime against humanity.
Extraordinary rendition
Extraordinary rendition, also known as torture flights, is the extrajudicial transfer of suspects between states for secret detention and interrogation with a genuine risk of torture; the CIA ran such a program after 11 September 2001.
Extraterrestrial real estate
Extraterrestrial real estate: claimed land ownership on the Moon, Mars, and asteroids. Outer Space Treaty Article II bars national appropriation; deeds sold by Dennis Hope's Lunar Embassy since 1980 have no legal standing, while four national resource laws and the Artemis Accords push partial recognition.
Extraterritorial jurisdiction
Extraterritorial jurisdiction: a state's exercise of legal power beyond its borders, resting on bases such as nationality, effects, protective, universal, and passive personality, historically tied to consular jurisdiction and unequal treaties.
Extraterritoriality
Extraterritoriality: exercise of state legal authority beyond national borders, via universal jurisdiction, effects doctrine, capitulations, consular courts, and sanctions; distinguished from purely territorial jurisdiction.
Extraterritoriality and consular jurisdiction in Meiji-era Korea
Extraterritoriality in Meiji-era Korea was the system under which Japanese and Western residents were tried by their own consuls, beginning with the 1876 Treaty of Ganghwa.
Extraterritoriality in China
Extraterritoriality in China was a treaty-based system, from the 1840s to 1943, under which foreigners were tried by their own countries' officials rather than Chinese courts.