Use this tag for claims about the law. This must be almost always be accompanied by a country tag, such as [united-states] to clarify which country's laws the claim is about.
Questions tagged [law]
278 questions
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Did a Florida woman get 20 years jail for firing warning shots in the air?
In the wake of the recent Zimmerman trial, Shan Diddy (@shannycat81) posted a tweet that was retweeted over 7,000 times, including by noted skeptic, Paul Provenza.
Meanwhile, ALSO in Florida, a Black single mother gets 20 years in jail for firing…
Oddthinking
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Is the Clinton Foundation currently under investigation?
Marc Lotter, former special assistant to President Trump, just said this to CNN's Erin Burnett in the course of defending President Trump from the fact that the Trump foundation is shutting down after being investigated by the state of New…
Keshav Srinivasan
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26
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Does the Westboro Baptist Church get most of their funding from lawsuits?
The Westboro Baptist Church is notorious for picketing things like funerals and they generate a lot of attention by doing so. A common trend in discussions about the church goes something like:
Someone should just beat all of them up
No, don't!…
MrHen
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26
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Does the establishment of a legal upper speed limit on highways lead to a reduction in traffic deaths and accidents?
The conventional wisdom is that established speed limits lead to an increase in safety.
Speed limits are usually set to attempt to cap road traffic speed; there are several reasons for wanting to do this. It is often done with an intention to…
Mauser
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26
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Do death penalty cases cost the state more than life-long imprisonment?
There are some claims on anti-death penalty sites that death penalty (in USA) costs are significantly more then costs of long-time imprisonment.
For example :
The death penalty is much more expensive than life without parole because the…
valodzka
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25
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Do you have to wait 24 hours before you can report a missing person?
From BuffaloNews.com - Niagara County procedures in place for missing seniors:
The sheriff said the department doesn’t wait the usual 24 hours in a
missing-persons case when the person being sought is under age 16 or
an Alzheimer’s…
Oliver_C
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In Alabama, if a person is found not guilty of rape, is their accuser assumed to be lying?
jessica a. m. @my2k
so the Alabama abortion criminalization bill has an extra tacked onto the end of it wherein, if a woman reports being raped and they find the person she accused not guilty, SHE goes to jail, because it's declared a false rape…
TRiG
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25
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Did a US court rule that the MMR vaccine causes autism?
The question of whether MMR vaccines cause autism has been addressed already on Skeptics.SE, and then again when new documents came to light.
This question is not about rehashing those facts, but is about a July 2013 Whiteout Press report claiming…
Oddthinking
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23
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1 answer
Has Israel used banned weapons against the population of Palestine?
According to this graphic from the Facebook group zionistlies,
The Israeli army uses 3 internationally banned weapons in its military aggression against the unarmed civilian population of Palestine.
Israel used Dense Inert Metal Explosive (DIME).…
Evan Carroll
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23
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Were senior officals who outran their executioners pardoned in the Ottoman Empire?
According to various sources, in the Ottoman Empire, when a senior official was given a death sentence, he'd race with his executioner. If he were to win the race, the death sentence would be commuted, and he'd merely be banished instead.
For a…
SpiderRico
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22
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Did a man sue himself and win?
According to this article and this post a man hit himself with a boomerang and then proceeded to sue himself.
A Kentucky man who threw a boomerang that flew back and hit him on the head has sued himself for US$300,000 (HK$2.32 million) - and…
Thijser
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Was impersonating an Egyptian once a capital offense in England?
This site claims that:
Serious crimes, such as murder, rape,
or impersonating an Egyptian were
given the death sentence in England.
Is that true?
Casebash
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Is it lawful for a cheated woman to kill her husband with her bare hands in Hong Kong?
I just saw this:
If a woman in Hong Kong discovers her husband isn’t being faithful, she is legally allowed to kill him but she can use nothing except for her hands.
Source
Is it true?
Einenlum
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Are there public laws dealing with extraterrestrial contact?
UFO theorists claim that there are US laws preventing people from investigating or contacting aliens.
From "Alien Contact Laws- $5,000 Fine And Imprisonment" at http://www.unexplainable.net/artman/publish/article_223.shtml
Already Passed by…
Paul
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Does banning abortion significantly increase or decrease the number of abortions?
According to the following article, the oft quoted result that abortion is higher in countries where it is legal is misleading:
The obvious problem with The Lancet study is that many of the
countries where abortion is illegal are located in…
Casebash
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