Glossary

Glossary The Community Room will always be in a state of flux as we tweak or add things we hear from Readers or Advocates. We will try to keep things current,dead links are a big Internet problem; Please let us know if you find one. And, let us know when something is not clear or should be added. e-mail eAdvocate@gmail.com Oxford Dictionary: Best Abbreviations: HERE Click to find out the truth Black's Law Dictionary Dictionary: HERE Psychology and Mental Health Dictionary Dictionary: HERE Pronouncing Dictionary of the Supreme Court of the United States HERE Congressional Website & Its Law Library Congress.gov HERE SCOTUS Blog Glossary HERE Legal Dictionary & Glossary Legal Dictionary: Quite Good LawBrain Used by the U.S. Department of Justice: HERE Used by the U.S. Courts: HERE Florida's Legislature: HERE Oklahoma's Legislature: HERE Maryland: HERE Legal Doctrines and Principles of Law Definition: Legal Doctrine Definition: Principle of Law List-1: Legal Doctrines List-2: Legal Doctrines List-3: Latin w/English descriptions For Legal Folks The 1991 Judicial Writing Manual by Michael G. Walsh Walsh's Tips for Judicial Clerks For Interpreting UN Documents The UN Glossary For Interpreting BJS Documents The BJS Glossary For Humorous Writing The Urban Dictionary Our Glossary *** Topic: This designation means the topic is being worked on. Accordingly, what is seen there may or may not make much sense at the moment, often we are gathering information and links getting ready to put it in some form of logical way. Should it make any sense to you, and you feel you have something to add, please let us know and we will try to phase it in. AfterCare LifeAfter Mentoring: Programs which assist former sex offenders on their path of reentry into the community. CLICK Age of Consent: The age at which states permit one to have sex, or not to have sex. We refer to this Internet list (Age of Consent)(verified here, which also includes Federal Ages of Consent) because they have reviewed each state's sex laws. Advocate: An Advocate is someone who has their own website, blog or radio station and maybe posts news items or local events in their area. They may also testify or present evidence to lawmakers to try to get laws stopped or changed and made reasonable for former offenders. Generally these are folks, maybe a family member of a former sex offender, or the former sex offender, or a group of folks, who are trying to change the laws as they are written. Advocate Mission & Position Statements: One of the most important points to remember is, that to help folks we must recognize that, laws must change, and to do that it is imperative Advocates' voices are accepted positively by lawmakers, who are the only ones that can effect change. Accordingly, Advocates' Mission and Position Statements are critical to effect change, and that they are not so radical as to cause lawmakers to look the other way when the Advocate's voice is before them. Therefore, the Community Room will focus on supporting only those Advocates whose ongoing Mission or Position Statements will effect change and not cause lawmakers to shun voices of Advocates or the Community Room. (See Goals) Advocate without websites: Yes such a Advocate may post in the Community Room. However, this type of Advocate would be limited as to what they post, they are limited to things that help former offenders in their daily lives. (This is not cast in stone either, but each request will have to be reviewed before posting to determine appropriateness and deciding where and how it may fit.) Community Room Scope: Long term there may be questions as to who and what is the focus of the Community Room. The Community Room scope is about as broad as one can envision under the umbrella of sex abuse, before an offense, the offense/s (during prosecution and sentence), and LifeAfter in the community, the offenders past-present-future, and the lives of those involved or associated with persons so mentioned. That includes the laws involved with any of those. In other words: LifeBefore, LifeDuring, and LifeAfter. Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM): Psychiatric Diagnoses are categorized by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 4th. Edition. Better known as the DSM-IV, the manual is published by the American Psychiatric Association and covers all mental health disorders for both children and adults. It also lists known causes of these disorders, statistics in terms of gender, age at onset, and prognosis as well as some research concerning the optimal treatment approaches. Mental Health Professionals use this manual when working with patients in order to better understand their illness and potential treatment and to help 3rd party payers (e.g., insurance) understand the needs of the patient. The book is typically considered the ‘bible’ for any professional who makes psychiatric diagnoses in the United States and many other countries. Much of the diagnostic information on these pages is gathered from the DSM IV. Doctrine of Constitutional Avoidance: In United States constitutional law, the doctrine of constitutional avoidance dictates that a federal court should refuse to rule on a constitutional issue if the case can be resolved on a nonconstitutional basis. When a federal court is faced with a choice of ruling on a statutory, regulatory or constitutional basis, the Supreme Court has instructed the lower court to decide the federal constitutional issue only as a last resort: "The Court will not pass upon a constitutional question although properly presented by the record, if there is also present some other ground upon which the case may be disposed of." Ashwander v. Tennessee Valley Auth., 297 U.S. 288, 347 (1936) (Brandeis, J., concurring). The avoidance doctrine flows from the canon of judicial self-restraint, and is intertwined with the debate over the proper scope of federal judicial review and the allocation of power among the three branches of the federal government and the states. It is also premised on the "delicacy" and "finality" of judicial review of legislation for constitutionality, concerns regarding the credibility of the federal courts, and the "paramount importance of constitutional adjudication in our system." [1] These elements demonstrate a significant overlap between the avoidance doctrine and other jurisdictional or justiciability barriers. The avoidance doctrine reflects such other justiciability doctrines as standing and ripeness, and permeates jurisdictional doctrines such as Pullman abstention and the adequate and independent state ground doctrine. Domain Names: Domain names are used to identify one or more IP addresses. For example, the domain name microsoft.com represents about a dozen IP addresses. Domain names are used in URLs to identify particular Web pages. For example, in the URL http://www.pcwebopedia.com/index.html, the domain name is pcwebopedia.com. Every domain name has a suffix that indicates which top level domain (TLD) it belongs to. There are only a limited number of such domains. For example: gov - Government agencies edu - Educational institutions org - Organizations (nonprofit) mil - Military com - commercial business net - Network organizations ca - Canada th - Thailand Because the Internet is based on IP addresses, not domain names, every Web server requires a Domain Name System (DNS) server to translate domain names into IP addresses. Double Jeopardy: Fifth Amendment guarantee, enforceable against states through Fourteenth Amendment, protects against second prosecution for same offense after acquittal or conviction, and against multiple punishments for the same offense. North Carolina v Pearce 395 US 711. The evil sought to be avoided is double trial and double conviction, not necessarily double punishment. Breed et al v Jones 421 US 519. (Black's Law 6th Ed p491) en banc court: In law, an en banc session is a session where a case is heard before all the judges of a court – in other words, before the entire bench – rather than by a panel selected from them. En banc is often used for unusually complex cases or cases considered to be of greater importance. Appellate courts in the United States sometimes grant rehearing en banc to reconsider a decision of a panel of the court (generally consisting of only three judges) in which the case concerns a matter of exceptional public importance or the panel's decision appears to conflict with a prior decision of the court. In rarer instances, an appellate court will order hearing en banc as an initial matter instead of the panel hearing it first. enabler: A person who for whatever reason, usually some relationship with the person, covers up or makes excuses for the behavior of the person committing questionable acts or being treated for same. Ex Post Facto Law: A law passed after the occurrence of a fact or commission of an act, which retrospectively changes the legal consequences or relations of such fact or deed. A law is unconstitutionally "ex post facto" if it deprives the defendant of a defense to criminal liability that he had prior to enactment of the law. State v Rogers, Ohio ComPl., 346 N.E.2d 352, 361. Art. I Sec. 9(Cl 3) and sec. 10 of the U.S. Constitution prohibit both Congress and the states from passing any ex post facto law. Most state constitutions contain similar prohibitions against ex post facto laws. An "ex post facto law" is defined as a law which provides for the infliction of punishment upon a person for an act done which, when it was committed, was innocent; a law which aggravates a crime or makes it greater than when it was committed; a law that changes the punishment or inflicts a greater punishment than the law annexed to the crime when it was committed; a law that changes the rules of evidence and receives less or different testimony than was required at the time of the commission of the offense in order to convict the offender; a law which, assuming to regulate civil rights and remedies only, in effect, imposes a penalty or the deprivation of a right which, when done, was lawful; a law which deprives persons accused of crime of some lawful protection to which they have become entitled, such as the protection of a former conviction or acquittal, or of the proclamation of amnesty;every law which, in relation to the offense or its consequences, alters the situation of a person to his disadvantage. Wilensky v Fields, Fla. 267 So2d 1, 5. (Black's Law 6th Ed p580) (eAdvocate Notes: Yes I personally believe most sex offender laws violate ex post facto prohibitions in some way as to certain persons, but I am not in control of today's laws) foreign national: A person who is not a naturalized citizen of the country in which they are living. LINKS: Shortened or tiny links WILL NOT BE ACCEPTED. Folks that visit this blog need to know where a link takes them before clicking on that link. There are NO EXCEPTIONS to this policy on links. Right of Publicity: In the United States, the Right of Publicity is a state-based right, and therefore each state must determine if and how it will recognize the Right. The statutes are the Alpha and Omega of analyzing a Right of Publicity situation, because in general Judges will adhere to the statutory language passed by the state legislature. At present, nineteen states recognize the Right of Publicity via statutes. Twenty-eight more recognize the right via common law. Pennsylvania is one of the most recent states to pass a Right of Publicity statute, and there is an effort to enact Right of Publicity legislation in North Carolina. California recently amended its Right of Publicity statute, and New York has had a bill in front of its legislature for the past few sessions. Stay tuned for further developments, and meanwhile, enjoy reading the text of the following Right of Publicity statutes. Sexual Orientation & Gender Identity: Sexual orientation is basically defined as "who one is attracted to" and for "Gender identity" see link. Vigilantism: Of all kinds is defined HERE Questions: Please e-mail eAdvocate@gmail.com For now, have a great day and a better tomorrow. eAdvocate (BACK to the Top Page)