link-in-chain principle. Criminal procedure. The principle that a criminal defendant’s Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination protects the defendant not only from answering directly incriminating questions but also from giving answers that might connect the defendant to criminal activity in the chain of evidence. [Cases: Criminal Law 393. C.J.S. Criminal Law § 645.]
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Bureau of Consular Affairs. A unit in the U.S. Department of State responsible for protecting U.S. citizens and interests abroad. • Through its Office of Passport Services it issues over 7 million passports each year.
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environmental law. The field of law dealing with the maintenance and protection of the environment, including preventive measures such as the requirements of environmental-impact statements, as well as measures to assign liability and provide cleanup for incidents that harm the environment. • Because most environmental litigation involves disputes with governmental agencies, environmental law is heavily
object code. Copyright. The machine-readable language compiled from a computer programmer’s source code. • Object code is difficult to reverse-engineer, so publicly available software is always in this form. Object code is protected by copyright and patent laws. Because people cannot read or understand it, object code is deposited with the U.S. Copyright Office more
A legislative directive included in a statute, intended to guide or direct a court’s interpretation of the statute. • A construction act can, for example, be a simple statement such as “The word ‘week’ means seven consecutive days” or a broader directive such as “Words and phrases are to be read in context and construed
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supplemental register. Trademarks. A roll of trademarks that are ineligible for listing on the Principal Register because they are not distinctive. • Marks on the supplemental list are not protected by trademark law, except to the extent that the listing may bar the registration of similar marks. The listing may be required, however, for a
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Consumer Credit Code 〈美〉消费信贷法典 由美国若干州统一适用的一部法典，其宗旨与美国联邦《消费信贷保护法》〔Consumer Credit Protection Act〕相同。 (→Uniform Consumer Credit Code)
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allegiance. 1. A citizen’s obligation of fidelity and obedience to the government or sovereign in return for the benefits of the protection of the state. • Allegiance may be either an absolute and permanent obligation or a qualified and temporary one. acquired allegiance. The allegiance owed by a naturalized citizen. actual allegiance. The obedience owed
An acceptance or undertaking not by a party to the instrument, but by a third party, for the purpose of protecting the honor or credit of one of the parties, by which the third party agrees to pay the debt when it becomes due if the original drawee does not. • This type of acceptance
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A prosecution that seeks to circumvent a defendant’s double-jeopardy protection by appearing to be prosecuted by another sovereignty, when it is in fact controlled by the sovereignty that already prosecuted the defendant for the same crime. • A sham prosecution is, in essence, a misuse of the dual-sovereignty doctrine. Under that doctrine, a defendant’s protection