Gale Encyclopedia Of American Law 3Rd Edition Volume 8 P28 potx

RATIONAL BASIS TEST A judicial standard of review that examines whether a legislature had a reasonable and not statute.. In areas of social and economic policy, where constitu-tionally s

Trang 1

New Approach to Treating Rape

Victims

A

B

woman who has been raped often encounters

painful and humiliating procedures when she

reports her sexual assault She is sent to a hospital

emergency room where she may wait a long time

for a medical examination and the collection of

evidence that is needed to convict a suspect She

often has little privacy while she waits In addition,

she is asked to tell her story of sexual assault

several times

The National Victim Center estimates that only

16 percent of rapes in the United States are

reported each year This low reporting rate can be

attributed in part to the cold, impersonal reporting

process and the rape victim’s fear of appearing at

the trial of the suspect

A program called SANE (Sexual Assault Nurse

Examiners), established in Tulsa, Oklahoma and

several other U.S cities, seeks to treat the

emotional, physical, and legal needs of rape victims

with greater consideration and sensitivity In the

SANE program, female nurses are trained to handle

the physical examination of the victim and to obtain

physical evidence using a sexual offense collection

kit In addition, the nurses are taught to interview

the victim about the assault and to keep good

records, which are critical to a successful criminal

prosecution of the suspect

Victims are seen in private rooms that are

decorated to avoid the look of a sterile, hospital

waiting room The nurse examiner allows the victim

to complete the examination at her own pace, in

from one to five hours A police officer is available

to transport the evidence to headquarters, but is not

allowed in the examining room

Prosecutors have lauded the SANE program

because its nurse examiners are better than

emergency-room staff at confirming sexual contact

and collecting evidence that shows the encounter

was forcible rather than consensual

SANE also gets credit for encouraging rape

victims to agree to testify at the criminal trial of the

suspect It is believed that women who receive insensitive treatment during the initial stages of reporting a sexual assault do not want to proceed with prosecution Because the SANE program treats victims with sympathy, care, and respect, women who have been examined through the program are more likely to agree to cooperate

After the success of SANE in several cities and communities, other programs have also evolved

Several communities have developed a Sexual Assault Response Team (SART), which consists of community professionals who work jointly to mini-mize the trauma to victims of sexual assault when they seek medical or legal assistance SART response teams coordinate their efforts to reduce the number of questions a victim must answer when law enforcement personnel and prosecutors collect evidence

Members of a SART unit often consist of personnel from emergency departments and law enforcement offices The effort is generally on a wider scale than SANE programs, and SANE and SART programs often work in conjunction with one another Some communities have also developed programs involving Sexual Assault Forensic Exam-iners (SAFE), which essentially serve the same function as SANE programs

In 2003 President George W Bush announced

an initiative that would enhance the use of DNA evidence to solve crimes As part of this proposal, several million dollars would be appropriated to support training and educational materials for doctors and nurses involved in treating sexual assault victims Included in this initiative is funding for SANE, SAFE, and SART programs

FURTHER READING SANE-SART Website Available online at www.sane-sart.com (accessed January 30, 2004).

CROSS REFERENCES Assault; Crimes; Sex Offenses; Women ’s Rights.

258 RAPE

Trang 2

who has sex with another adult without the

knowledge that he or she is not consenting

Nevertheless, even in a state that has not

eliminated the physical resistance requirement

for competent adults, if the victim says“No” or

otherwise verbally indicates lack of consent, the

perpetrator still may be convicted of rape This

point reflects the fact that prosecutors have

argued, and appeals courts have agreed, that

some amount of force, no matter how slight,

should be sufficient to fulfill the forcible

compulsion element The sexual penetration

of a competent adult, for example, may be

enough force to meet a forcible compulsion

requirement, if the victim indicated a lack of

consent

Most states have so-called rapeSHIELD LAWS

These laws restrict or prohibit the use of

evidence respecting the sexual history of rape

victims and the victims of other sexual offenses

Before the enactment of rape shield laws in the

1970s and 1980s, rape trials often focused on

the chastity of the victim to determine whether

the victim was actually raped Rape shield laws

keep the focus of a rape prosecution on the

actions of the defendant rather than the prior

actions of the alleged victim

FURTHER READINGS

Irr, Melissa 2001 “United States v Morrison: An Analysis of

the Diminished Effect of Congressional Findings in

Commerce Clause Jurisprudence and a Criticism of the

Abandonment of the Rational Basis Test ” University of

Pittsburgh Law Review 62 (summer).

Johnson, Virginia H 2001 “Application of the Rational

Basis Test to Treaty-Implementing Legislation: The

Need for a More Stringent Standard of Review.”

Cardozo Law Review 23 (November).

Neily, Clark 2005 “No Such Thing: Litigating under the

Rational Basis Test ” NYU Journal of Law & Liberty 898.

CROSS REFERENCES

Fifth Amendment; Fourteenth Amendment; Judicial Review.

RAVISHMENT

Unlawful carnal physical activity conducted by

force and against the victim’s will

Ravishment originally referred to the seizure

and carrying off of a female by a male For this

reason, and because of the associated

connota-tions of pleasure and joy, the term is considered

archaic and inappropriate in modern

circum-stances It is now generally considered the same

as RAPE However, the Restatement (First) of

Torts § 65a defines ravishment as including not

just rape but any carnal intercourse of a

criminal nature

vRAWLS, JOHN BORDLEY John Bordley Rawls was one of the major ethical and political philosophers of the twentieth century His work embraced liberalism and egalitarianism, while rejecting utilitarianism and more radical political ideas His most important work, A Theory of Justice (1971), explores the idea of“justice as fairness.”

Rawls was born on February 21, 1921, in Baltimore, Maryland He earned his bachelor’s degree from Princeton University in 1943 and his doctorate from Princeton in 1950 Rawls was

an instructor at Princeton between 1950 and

1952, before attending Oxford University as a Fulbright Fellow Upon his return to the United States in 1953, he held professorships at Cornell University (1953–1959) and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1960–1962)

John Bordley Rawls 1921–2002

❖

1914–18 World War I

1921 Born, Baltimore, Md.

1939–45 World War II

◆

1943 Earned B.A from Princeton University

◆

1950 Earned Ph.D from Princeton

1950–53 Korean War

1952–53 Studied as a Fulbright Fellow at Oxford

1953–59 Taught at Cornell University

1960–62 Taught at M.I.T.

1961–73 Vietnam War

1971 A Theory

of Justice published

◆ ◆

◆

1962–91 Held professorship in philosophy

at Harvard University

1991 Became professor emeritus at Harvard

1993

Political Liberalism

published

◆ ❖

2002 Died, Lexington, Mass.

2000 Lectures

on the History of Moral Philosophy

published

John Rawls.

COURTESY OF THE JOHN RAWLS ESTATE

Trang 5

In 1962 Rawls was appointed professor of philosophy at Harvard University, a position he held until his retirement in 1991 He continued

as a professor emeritus at Harvard, however, in the late 1990s

Rawls developed his ideas on justice in articles published in the 1950s and 1960s In his

1971 publication A Theory of Justice, Rawls tried

to reconcile liberty and equality The book received widespread praise for its analysis of morality and justice

Rawls’s theory of justice is based on two principles of justice that, he believed, could make possible a just and moral society The first principle guarantees the right of each person to the most extensive basic liberty that is compati-ble with the liberty of others The second principle guarantees that social and economic positions are open to all and to everyone’s advantage One central concern for Rawls was

to show how such principles would be univer-sally adopted

Working from these principles, Rawls developed what he called “justice as fairness.”

This idea proposes that the rules of a group are fair to the extent that a person would agree to be bound by them when ignorant (“the veil of ignorance”) of his own possession of character-istics that the rules of the system reward or penalize In this “original position,” a person would not agree to unfair rules because there would be the possibility that he or she would be disadvantaged by them Thus, the original position forces a person to make moral conclusions and to adopt a generalized point

of view in making a social contract

Rawls published Political Liberalism in 1993 (updated in 1996), partly in response to criticism of A Theory of Justice His Collected Papers were published in 1999, as was The Law

of Peoples; with, “The Idea of Public Reason Revisited,” which put forth his comprehensive theory of international politics In 2000 his Harvard lectures were published as Lectures on the History of Moral Philosophy Harvard University Press published more essays the following year as Justice as Fairness: A Restate-ment Rawls died on November 24, 2002, at his home in Lexington, Massachusetts

FURTHER READINGS Bullock, Alan, and R.B Woodings, eds 1983 20th Century Culture: A Biographical Companion New York: Harper

& Row.

Kukathas, Chandran, ed 2003 John Rawls: Critical Assess-ments of Leading Political Philosophers New York: Routledge.

Rawls, John 2001 Justice as Fairness: A Restatement Cambridge, Mass: Belknap.

Rawls, John 1999 A Theory of Justice Rev ed Cambridge, Mass: Belknap.

Talisse, Robert B 2001 On Rawls Belmont, Calif.: Wads-worth/Thomson Learning.

CROSS REFERENCES Jurisprudence; Moral Law.

RE [Latin, In the matter of; in the case of.]

A term of frequent use in designating judicial proceedings, in which there is only one party Thus, “Re Vivian” signifies “In the matter of Vivian,” or “in Vivian’s Case.” CROSS REFERENCE

In Re.

vREAGAN, RONALD WILSON Ronald Wilson Reagan served as PRESIDENT OF

was a former radio announcer, screen actor, and governor of California, whose conservative political philosophy challenged the role that the federal government played in U.S society

An avowed opponent of big government, Reagan proposed to return power to the states and to strip the federal government of many of its regulatory functions Although he was not successful on all fronts, Reagan changed the political landscape that had remained virtually untouched since the presidency ofFRANKLIN D

Reagan was born on February 6, 1911, in Tampico, Illinois When he was nine years old, his family moved to Dixon, Illinois He attended nearby Eureka College and graduated in 1932

He worked as a radio and sports announcer at several stations in Iowa before he was discov-ered by a Hollywood talent scout He signed an acting contract with the Warner Brothers motion picture studio in 1937

Reagan appeared in more than 50 movies between 1937 and the early 1950s His most famous role was that of Notre Dame University football player George Gipp in Knute Rockne— All American (From that film comes the famous quotation, “Win one for the Gipper.”) From

1942 to 1945 he served in the U.S Army,

EACH PERSON

POSSESSES AN

INVIOLABILITY

FOUNDED ON JUSTICE

THAT EVEN THE

WELFARE OF SOCIETY

AS A WHOLE CANNOT

OVERRIDE

—J OHN R AWLS

262 RE

Trang 6

making training films forWORLD WAR IIsoldiers.

It was after the war that Reagan became

interested in politics, initially from his work

with the Screen Actors Guild, a union that

represents Hollywood film actors Elected

president of the union in 1947, Reagan was a

vigorous supporter of the labor movement as

well as an able negotiator with the major movie

studios

Originally a Democrat and an admirer of

President Franklin D Roosevelt, Reagan

be-came concerned about communist influence in

the Hollywood labor unions During the late

1940s and early 1950s, Hollywood was

embroiled in a RED SCARE The House

Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) held

hearings where screen actors, screenwriters,

producers, and directors were interrogated

about their participation in communist

organi-zations Reagan initially defended his

Holly-wood brethren but soon backed away

Reagan’s divorce from actress Jane Wyman

in 1949 and his remarriage to actress Nancy

Davis also had an effect on his politics His new

wife’s father was a political conservative, who

helped steer him toward the REPUBLICAN PARTY

As his movie career declined, his interest in

politics increased He was hired by the General

Electric Company to be its traveling

spokesper-son and the host of the General Electric Theater

on television From 1954 to 1962 Reagan

maintained this relationship with General

Electric His conservative ideology deepened as

he gave speeches around the country,

support-ing U.S business, criticizsupport-ing government

regu-lation, and attackingCOMMUNISM

Reagan became a national political figure during the 1964 presidential campaign An ardent supporter of Arizona Senator BARRY M

philosophy, Reagan gave a televised speech, later referred to as“A Time for Choosing,” in which

he famously spoke of a rendezvous with destiny

With that speech, Reagan tried to revitalize Goldwater’s sagging campaign against President

but Reagan gained the attention of Republican political leaders

At the urging of a group of prominent California businessmen, Reagan ran as the

Ronald Wilson Reagan 1911–2004

1925

1914–18

World War I

1939–45 World War II

1950–53 Korean War

1961–73 Vietnam War

1911 Born,

Tampico, Ill.

1932 Graduated from Eureka College (Illinois)

1937 Signed acting contract with Warner Brothers studio

1947–52 & 59–60 Served as president of Screen Actors Guild

1954–62

Hosted General Electric Theater

on television

1967–75 Served as governor of California

1981–89 Served as president

1986–88 Iran-Contra Affair revealed secret weapons sales to Iran by National Security Council staff

1987 Signed INF Treaty with Soviet Union

1989 Berlin Wall fell, marking unofficial end of Cold War

1981 John Hinckley Jr shot and wounded Reagan and three others

1982 Appointed Sandra Day O’Connor as first woman justice of U.S Supreme Court

1986 Tax Reform Act of 1986 became largest tax reform legislation to date

1994 Disclosed Alzheimer’s disease in letter to public

2001 Received, along with former First Lady Nancy Reagan, the Congressional Gold Medal

u u

2004 Died, Bel Air, Calif.

2003 USS Ronald Reagan commissioned by the Navy

Ronald Reagan.

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS.

Trang 7

Republican candidate for governor of California

in 1966 Democratic Governor Edmund (“Pat”) Brown, who had defeated RICHARD M.NIXON in

1962, dismissed Reagan as a television actor and did not take him seriously Reagan proved, however, to be a formidable opponent A polished and effective public speaker, he spoke out against welfare cheaters and antiwar radicals

on college campuses He won the election by nearly one million votes, the most convincing victory ever achieved against an INCUMBENT governor in U.S history

Reagan’s two terms as governor (he was reelected in 1970) were marked by conflict with

a Democratic-controlled legislature He raised state income taxes, contrary to his political platform, but he justified the increase as the means of paying for a reduction in local property taxes He implemented some reforms

in welfare programs and improved the state’s higher-education system

In 1974 Reagan decided not to run for a third term as governor, setting his sights instead

on the White House In 1976 he challenged President GERALD R FORD for the Republican Party nomination Ford, who had become president in 1974 when Richard M Nixon resigned, was a moderate Republican whose public favor had been severely damaged by his pardon of Nixon Reagan fell only 60 votes short

of defeating Ford for the nomination

From 1976 to 1980 Reagan prepared himself for another presidential race He remained in the public eye through a newspaper column and radio show, in which he commented on public affairs In 1980 he defeated his Republican rivals and was nominated for president, withGEORGE H

W.BUSHas his running mate

Reagan easily defeated President JIMMY

the national economy had suffered from high inflation and unemployment Carter also was damaged by the Iranian hostage crisis, in which

52 Americans had been held hostage by Iran His inability to resolve the hostage crisis, which included a failed military-rescue mission, con-tributed to his overwhelming defeat in Novem-ber 1980 In 1984 Reagan won the largest victory

in U.S presidential history when he defeated former vice president Walter F Mondale

On January 21, 1981, as Reagan was being inaugurated president, Iran released the 52 hostages With that crisis resolved (largely as a

result of Carter’s work), Reagan set out to cut income taxes, to reduce the federal budget, to increase defense spending, and to deregulate U.S business On March 31, 1981, his efforts were temporarily sidetracked when John W Hinckley Jr shot and wounded Reagan and his press secretary, James S Brady Reagan made a quick and complete recovery

In the aftermath of the shooting, Reagan’s popularity rose even higher One of Reagan’s first presidential acts was to fire 11,345 striking air traffic controllers who failed to comply with his order to return to work The firing of these individuals is regarded as one of largest acts of union-busting in U.S history

Reagan’s economic plans were built on a theory called supply-side economics This theory asserts that when taxes are cut, the money that is put back into the economy stimulates the production of more goods and services, thereby increasing jobs, with the result that more taxes are generated than were cut at the beginning of the process In 1981 Reagan persuaded Congress to reduce taxes over a three-year period and to impose severe budget cuts on nondefense spending

The results of “Reaganomics” proved mixed The economy entered a recession in

1982, before rebounding in 1983 Inflation dropped, but government spending was not reduced sufficiently to make up for the revenue that had been forgone through tax cuts The problem was exacerbated when Congress passed Reagan’s tax-reform package in 1986 Tax rates were reduced, and millions of low-income persons were removed from the tax rolls Consequently, the federal government bor-rowed money to pay for the tax cuts The national debt doubled in size between 1981 and

1986 By the time Reagan left office, the United States had gone from a creditor nation to the world’s largest debtor nation, owing half a trillion dollars to foreign investors

Pressure on the federal budget also came from Reagan’s determination to begin the largest peacetime military build-up in U.S history Many new weapons systems were proposed, but the cornerstone of Reagan’s defense system proposal was the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) Dubbed “Star Wars”

by the media and his critics, Reagan proposed to build an antiballistic missile-defense system that would shoot down Soviet missiles from space

IBELIEVE THAT

GOVERNMENT IS THE

PROBLEM,NOT THE

ANSWER

—R ONALD R EAGAN

264 REAGAN, RONALD WILSON

Trang 8

Billions of dollars were committed to research,

but actual systems proved hard to devise

In foreign affairs, Reagan came into office

maintaining his strong anti-communist

posi-tion He employed what became known as the

Reagan Doctrine, which consisted of a policy of

supporting anti-communist insurgents, which

included covert aid for anti-Communist guerrillas

fighting established governments in Nicaragua,

Angola, Kampuchea, and Afghanistan

Reagan referred to the Soviet Union an“evil

empire,” and sought to negotiate arms control

with that country In 1987 he negotiated the

Treaty) The INF Treaty was the first agreement

by which both sides destroyed existing weapons

Relations between the superpowers improved

during Reagan’s second term, mainly because

the new Soviet premier, Mikhail Gorbachev,

had sought to change the COLD WARclimate In

the same year, Reagan delivered the well-known

speech to the people of West Berlin, Germany,

wherein he called upon Gorbachev to “tear

down this wall!” The Berlin Wall was a

long-standing symbol of communism, which

ulti-mately came down in 1989

Reagan also fought communism beyond the

Soviet Union He authorized the U.S invasion

of Grenada in 1983, as well as the U.S bombing

of Libya in 1986 He referred to the attack on

Libya as an act ofSELF-DEFENSE, accusing Libya of

engaging in acts of TERRORISM aimed at the

United States The attack on Libya was widely

criticized in the international community

Reagan made a dramatic change in the

federal courts through his appointment power

During his two terms, he filled 372 of the 736

judgeships in the federal courts Attorneys

General WILLIAM FRENCH SMITH and EDWIN MEESE

III established a screening process that tried to

assure Reagan that he would be appointing

judges who were in agreement with his

conservative philosophy In 1982 Reagan

appointed SANDRA DAY O’CONNOR to the U.S

Supreme Court O’Connor was the first woman

to sit on the Court He elevated Justice WILLIAM

and appointed Judge ANTONIN SCALIAto the seat

that Rehnquist had vacated

Reagan encountered problems with two of

his other nominees When he nominated Judge

F Powell Jr., the nomination met a firestorm of

criticism Bork was an outspoken jurist and one

of the best-known conservative judges in the country When the Senate defeated Bork’s nomination, Reagan appointed Judge DOUGLAS

after he disclosed that he had smoked mari-juana On his third attempt, Reagan successfully appointed Judge ANTHONY M KENNEDY to the Court

In 1986 Reagan signed the IMMIGRATION Reform and Control Act (IRCA) The IRCA made it illegal to knowingly hire or recruit illegal immigrants and required employers to attest to their employees’ immigration status

The IRCA also granted AMNESTY to millions of illegal immigrants who came to the United States before January 1, 1982, and had lived in the country continuously The IRCA has been said to have transformed U.S immigration policy, taking the focus away from border patrol and placing it instead on addressing the issues arising from illegal immigrants once they have entered the country

The last two years of the Reagan adminis-tration were consumed with the political damage caused by the IRAN-CONTRA AFFAIR Members of theNATIONAL SECURITY COUNCILstaff had secretly sold weapons to Iran, a terrorist state that was forbidden to purchase armaments under U.S law One goal of the weapons sales was to facilitate the release of U.S hostages held

in Lebanon, but another goal was to use some of the proceeds to support the Nicaraguan anti-communist Contra rebels against the Marxist Sandinista government Because Congress had forbidden U.S support of the rebels, the actions

of Reagan’s staff were illegal

In late 1986 the details of these actions began to emerge Reagan denied any knowledge

of the actions that his advisers had taken, but Senate hearings on the matter in 1987 cast doubt on the president’s statements The hearings damaged Reagan’s administration be-cause they revealed that the president appar-ently had been out of touch with the conduct of national affairs

Despite Iran-Contra, Reagan left office a popular president In 1989 he retired to California

In 1994 Reagan made public that he had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease, an incurable, degenerative neurological disease marked by gradual memory loss, aphasia, and

Trang 9

degradation of motor functions By revealing his disease to the public, Reagan said that he hoped

to foster greater public awareness of the disease and to spur research for treatment and a cure

On March 4, 2001, Nancy Reagan chris-tened the United States Navy’s newest Nimitz-class, nuclear powered aircraft carrier the USS Ronald Reagan in a ceremony at the Northrop Grumman Newport News shipyard in Newport News, Virginia The USS Ronald Reagan was commissioned by the Navy in the summer 2003 and is homeported at Naval Air Station North Island in San Diego, California On June 5,

2004, Ronald Reagan died at his home in Bel Air, California, at the age of 93

FURTHER READINGS Benson, Michael 2004 Ronald Reagan Minneapolis: Lerner Publications.

Busch, Andrew E 2001 Ronald Reagan and the Politics of Freedom Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield.

Grant, Otis B 2008 “President Ronald Reagan and the African-American Community: Harmful Stereotyping and Games of Choice in Market-Oriented Policy Reform ” Thomas M Cooley Law Review 25.

Mervin, David 1990 Ronald Reagan and the American Presidency New York: Longman.

Peterson, Christian 2003 Ronald Reagan and Antinuclear Movements in the United States and Western Europe, 1981–1987 Lewiston, N.Y.: Edwin Mellen Press.

Reagan, Ronald 2007 The Reagan Diaries New York:

HarperCollins.

Wagner, Heather Lehr 2004 Ronald Reagan Philadelphia:

Chelsea House.

Wallison, Peter J 2003 Ronald Reagan: The Power of Conviction and the Success of His Presidency Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press.

CROSS REFERENCES

"First Inaugural Address" (Appendix, Primary Document);

Tax Reform Act of 1986.

REAL

or immovable), as distinguished from a person

Relating to land, as distinguished from PERSONAL PROPERTY This term is applied to lands, tenements, and hereditaments

REAL ACTIONS Lawsuits concerning real property, or land Under

of actions, the procedures by which a lawsuit was begun

The categories of forms of actions were real actions, for lawsuits for the recovery of land;

mixed actions, for lawsuits for the recovery of land and of monetary damages for harm done

to it; and personal actions, for lawsuits to recover items ofPERSONAL PROPERTYor monetary damages

REAL ESTATE Land, buildings, and things permanently attached

to land and buildings Also called “realty” and

“real property.”

Real estate is the modern term for land and anything that is permanently affixed to it Fixtures include buildings, fences, and things attached to buildings, such as plumbing, heating, and light fixtures Property that is not affixed is regarded

and draperies are items of personal property The sale and lease of real estate in the United States are major economic activities and are regulated by state and federal laws The two major types of real estate are commercial and residential real estate Commercial real estate involves the sale and lease of property for business purposes Residential real estate involves the sale and rental of land and houses

to individuals and families for daily living The sale of residential property is heavily regulated All states require real estate agents and brokers, who earn a commission from the owner of real estate for selling the property,

to be licensed To obtain a license, a person must have a high-school diploma, be at least eighteen years old, and pass a written test on real estate principles and law Agents and brokers can take additional courses to become accredited by the NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF

to a comprehensive code of ethics (“Realtor”

is a trademarked title.) Since the 1970s, home buyers have been given additional protection under the law Many states and municipalities require a seller

of real estate to file a truth-in-housing state-ment (often known as a “seller’s disclosure form”) A seller must disclose any problems with the home, such as a wet basement or the presence of termites, on the form Failure to disclose this information can result in the revocation of the purchase agreement or a lawsuit by the buyers against the seller forFRAUD

In addition, some laws require an inspector to visit the property to determine whether there are any problems

266 REAL

Trang 10

Most purchases of residential real estate

require the buyer to obtain a mortgage from a

bank or other lending institution The lending

institution receives a security interest on the real

estate, which means that if the borrower

defaults in paying back the borrowed money,

the institution can obtain title to the property

and resell it to pay off the mortgage debt

The federal government enacted the Real

Estate Settlement Procedure Act of 1974

(RESPA) (12 U.S.C.A § 2601 et seq.) to ensure

that the buyer of residential real estate is made

aware of the many costs associated with the

sale RESPA mandates that a federally insured

lending institution give the buyer advance

notice of all the costs to be paid on the date

of closing the transactions These costs typically

include the cost of property surveys, appraisals,

title searches, brokers’ fees, and administrative

and processing charges

CROSS REFERENCE

Sales Law.

REAL EVIDENCE

Probative matter furnished by items that are

actually on view, as opposed to a verbal description

of them by a witness

For example, a weapon used in the

com-mission of a crime would be classified as real

evidence

REAL PROPERTY

REALIZED

Actual; converted into cash

For tax purpose, an investment result is

realized, or officially finalized and logged as

such, after the holder of the asset transfers it and

must compare the sale price to the purchase

price A realized profit or loss is a cash-in-hand

gain or loss (as distinguished from a paper

profit or loss) Common examples include the

increase or decrease in value of a particular

stock after a sale Realized gains can thus be

subject to federal and state income taxation (i.e.,

if the asset in question is taxable) if recognized

However, they could be offset (in effect,

cancelled) by corresponding realized losses, in

the process of netting the taxpayer’s final tax

liability for a particular period

FURTHER READINGS Donaldson, Samuel A 1998 Federal Income Taxation of Individuals: Cases, Problems & Materials 2d ed St Paul, Minn.: Thomson/West.

Graetz, Michael J 2009 Federal Income Taxation: Principles and Policies 6th ed New York: Foundation Press.

REASONABLE Suitable; just; proper; ordinary; fair; usual

The term reasonable is a generic and relative one and applies to that which is appropriate for

a particular situation

In the law of NEGLIGENCE, the reasonable person standard is the standard of care that a reasonably prudent person would observe under a given set of circumstances An individ-ual who subscribes to such standards can avoid liability for negligence Similarly a reasonable act is that which might fairly and properly be required of an individual

REASONABLE DOUBT Reasonable doubt is a standard of proof that must

be surpassed to convict an accused in a criminal proceeding

Reasonable doubt is a standard of proof used

in criminal trials When a criminal DEFENDANT

is prosecuted, the PROSECUTOR must prove the defendant’s guiltBEYOND A REASONABLE DOUBT If the jury—or the judge in a bench trial—has a reasonable doubt as to the defendant’s guilt, the jury or judge should pronounce the defendant not guilty Conversely, if the jurors

or judge have no doubt as to the defendant’s guilt, or if their only doubts are unreasonable doubts, then the prosecutor has proven the defendant’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt and the defendant should be pronounced guilty

Reasonable doubt is the highest standard of proof used in court In civil LITIGATION, the standard of proof is either proof by a prepon-derance of the evidence or proof by clear and convincing evidence These are lower burdens

of proof A preponderance of the evidence simply means that one side has more evidence

in its favor than the other, even by the smallest degree Clear and convincing evidence is evidence that establishes a high probability that the fact sought to be proved is true The main reason that the high proof standard of reason-able doubt is used in criminal trials is that criminal trials can result in the deprivation of a

REASONABLE DOUBT 267

Định dạng
Số trang	10
Dung lượng	337,83 KB