Under the common law, a defendant who refused to enter a plea was considered to be contesting the court’s jurisdiction and was subjected to ‘peine fort et dure’ — pressing under heavy weights — until the defendant either consented to plead or … Continue reading
Tag Archives: Boston University Executive LL.M. Program
A ‘wobbler’, otherwise known as a ‘hybrid crime’, is one that can be charged as either a felony or a misdemeanor. These crimes are said to ‘wobble’ between these two categories, as they can be charged as either based on … Continue reading
The Sixteenth Amendment, passed in 1913, is probably one of the least well-known and yet most unpopular amendments, as it grants Congress the ability to levy a federal income tax. While the first federal income tax was levied during the Civil War as … Continue reading
Distressingly, there is no official “Lawyer’s Day” in the U.S.–despite the fact that nearly half of the members of Congress are lawyers. In fact, a member of Congress in 2015 was 66x more likely to be a lawyer than the average … Continue reading