Unratified amendments.

An assault is the act of inflicting physical harm or unwanted physical contact upon a person or, in some specific legal definitions, a threat or attempt to commit such an action. It is both a crime and a tort and, therefore, may result in criminal prosecution, civil liability, or both. Generally, the common law definition is the same in criminal and tort law.

Traditionally, common law legal systems had separate definitions for assault and battery. When this distinction is observed, battery refers to the actual bodily contact, whereas assault refers to a credible threat or attempt to cause battery. Some jurisdictions combined the two offences into assault and battery, which then became widely referred to as "assault". The result is that in many of these jurisdictions, assault has taken on a definition that is more in line with the traditional definition of battery. The legal systems of civil law and Scots law have never distinguished assault from battery.

Legal systems generally acknowledge that assaults can vary greatly in severity. In the United States, an assault can be charged as either a misdemeanor or a felony. In England and Wales and Australia, it can be charged as either common assault, assault occasioning actual bodily harm (ABH) or grievous bodily harm (GBH). Canada also has a three-tier system: assault, assault causing bodily harm and aggravated assault. Separate charges typically exist for sexual assaults, affray and assaulting a police officer. Assault may overlap with an attempted crime; for example an assault may be charged as an attempted murder if it was done with intent to kill.

Gross negligence is the "lack of slight diligence or care" or "a conscious, voluntary act or omission in reckless disregard of a legal duty and of the consequences to another party." In some jurisdictions a person injured as a result of gross negligence may be able to recover punitive damages from the person who caused the injury or loss.

Negligence is the opposite of diligence, or being careful. The standard of ordinary negligence is what conduct deviates from the proverbial "reasonable person". By extension, if somebody has been grossly negligent, that means they have fallen so far below the ordinary standard of care that one can expect, to warrant the label of being "gross". Gross negligence may thus be described as reflecting "the want of even slight or scant care", falling below the level of care that even a careless person would be expected to follow. While some jurisdictions equate the culpability of gross negligence with that of recklessness, most differentiate it from simple negligence in its degree.

Negligence (negligentia in Latin) is a failure to exercise appropriate and or ethical rules of care expected to be exercised amongst specified circumstances. The area of tort law known as negligence involves harm caused by failing to act as a form of carelessness possibly with extenuating circumstances. The core concept of negligence is that people should exercise reasonable care in their actions, by taking account of the potential harm that they might foreseeably cause to other people or property.

Someone who suffers loss caused by another's negligence may be able to sue for damages to compensate for their harm. Such loss may include physical injury, harm to property, psychiatric illness, or economic loss. The law on negligence may be assessed in general terms according to a five-part model which includes the assessment of duty, breach, actual cause, proximate cause, and damages.

Elements of negligence claims

Some things must be established by anyone who wants to sue in negligence. These are what are called the "elements" of negligence.

Most jurisdictions say that there are four elements to a negligence action:

1. duty: the defendant has a duty to others, including the plaintiff, to exercise reasonable care,

2. breach: the defendant breaches that duty through an act or culpable omission,

3. damages: as a result of that act or omission, the plaintiff suffers an injury, and

4. causation: the injury to the plaintiff is a reasonably foreseeable consequence of the defendant's act or omission.

Some jurisdictions narrow the definition down to three elements: duty, breach and proximately caused harm. Some jurisdictions recognize five elements, duty, breach, actual cause, proximate cause, and damages. However, at their heart, the various definitions of what constitutes negligent conduct are very similar.

In re: Don McGahn (also: Committee on the Judiciary, United States House of Representatives v. Donald F. McGahn II; U.S. House Judiciary Committee v. Donald F. McGahn) is a U.S. constitutional case lawsuit (1:19-cv-02379) filed in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia by the House Judiciary Committee to compel the testimony of former White House Counsel Donald F. McGahn, Jr. under subpoena. McGahn was put under subpoena to testify regarding his knowledge of the Russia investigation and Mueller Report and whether President Donald Trump's actions could constitute obstruction of justice. The case gained importance as the House launched impeachment proceedings against Trump regarding the Trump–Ukraine scandal.

In April 2019, the House Judiciary Committee subpoenaed McGahn to testify before Congress about potential obstruction of justice on the part of the Trump administration. The administration directed McGahn to ignore the subpoena, claiming that he was "absolutely immune" from compelled congressional testimony. In August 2019, the Judiciary Committee sued McGahn to compel his testimony. On November 25, U.S. District Court Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson ruled that McGahn must testify, declaring that "no one is above the law," but allowed McGahn to invoke executive privilege on certain questions. Jackson's ruling said that the Justice Department's claim to "unreviewable absolute testimonial immunity" is "baseless, and as such, cannot be sustained". The ruling is laced with references to and quotes from the Founding Fathers of the United States and the Constitution's Framers.

The case was appealed by the Department of Justice (DOJ), representing Don McGahn, and on November 26, the DOJ asked Jackson to put a temporary stay on her order so they could appeal it. The Justice Department requested a second stay pending an appeal of the ruling, but Judge Jackson rejected that request on December 2, calling the DOJ's assertion that the Judiciary Committee would not be harmed by a stay "disingenuous". In August 2020, the full US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled 7-2 that the House of Representatives could sue to subpoena McGahn.

Amending the Constitution.

The procedure for amending the Constitution is outlined in Article Five. The process is overseen by the archivist of the United States. Between 1949 and 1985 it was overseen by the administrator of General Services, and before that by the secretary of state.

Under Article Five, a proposal for an amendment must be adopted either by Congress or by a national convention, but as of 2020 all amendments have gone through Congress. The proposal must receive two-thirds of the votes of both houses to proceed. It is passed as a joint resolution, but is not presented to the president, who plays no part in the process. Instead, it is passed to the Office of the Federal Register, which copies it in slip law format and submits it to the states. Congress decides whether the proposal is to be ratified in the state legislature or by a state ratifying convention. To date all amendments have been ratified by the state legislatures except one, the Twenty-first Amendment.

A proposed amendment becomes an operative part of the Constitution as soon as it is ratified by three-fourths of the States (currently 38 of the 50 states). There is no further step. The text requires no additional action by Congress or anyone else after ratification by the required number of states. Thus, when the Office of the Federal Register verifies that it has received the required number of authenticated ratification documents, it drafts a formal proclamation for the Archivist to certify that the amendment is valid and has become part of the nation's frame of government. This certification is published in the Federal Register and United States Statutes at Large and serves as official notice to Congress and to the nation that the ratification process has been successfully completed.

Layout designs (topographies) of integrated circuits are a field in the protection of intellectual property.

In criminal law, a conspiracy is an agreement between two or more persons to commit a crime at some time in the future. Criminal law in some countries or for some conspiracies may require that at least one overt act be undertaken in furtherance of that agreement, to constitute an offense. There is no limit on the number participating in the conspiracy and, in most countries, no requirement that any steps have been taken to put the plan into effect (compare attempts which require proximity to the full offense). For the purposes of concurrence, the actus reus is a continuing one and parties may join the plot later and incur joint liability and conspiracy can be charged where the co-conspirators have been acquitted or cannot be traced. Finally, repentance by one or more parties does not affect liability (unless, in some cases, it occurs before the parties have committed overt acts) but may reduce their sentence.

An unindicted co-conspirator, or unindicted conspirator, is a person or entity that is alleged in an indictment to have engaged in conspiracy, but who is not charged in the same indictment. Prosecutors choose to name persons as unindicted co-conspirators for a variety of reasons including grants of immunity, pragmatic considerations, and evidentiary concerns.

The defence of property is a common method of justification used by defendants who argue that they should not be held liable for any loss and injury that they have caused because they were acting to protect their property.

Shopkeeper's privilege is a law recognized in some parts of the United States under which a shopkeeper is allowed to detain a suspected shoplifter on store property for a reasonable period of time, so long as the shopkeeper has cause to believe that the person detained in fact committed, or attempted to commit, theft of store property.

In many countries, in order to obtain damages for breach of contract or to obtain specific performance or other equitable relief, the aggrieved injured party may file a civil (non-criminal) lawsuit in court.