Laws are not always clear when applied to real disputes. Learn how courts interpret statutes, constitutions, regulations, and precedent—and why text, context, legislative structure, and prior decisions matter.
An examination of America's mortgage default system, including nonjudicial foreclosures, loss mitigation, property valuations, HOA liens and nationwide legal services.
Flock license-plate cameras can record millions of vehicles and make their movements searchable. Courts are now confronting a difficult Fourth Amendment question: when does observation on public roads become surveillance?
The Supreme Court follows precedent, but precedent is not unchangeable. From segregation and economic regulation to privacy and abortion, some landmark rulings exist because the Court concluded an earlier Supreme Court decision should no longer control.
Federal appeals courts sometimes interpret the same federal law differently, creating a circuit split. Until the Supreme Court intervenes, the same law can effectively mean different things in different parts of the country.
A fish, an airplane, a tomato and some of the biggest civil-rights and regulatory disputes in America have turned on the meaning of a word or short phrase. These cases show how much can depend on the language Congress chose.
A confession can seem like the strongest evidence imaginable. Yet documented wrongful convictions show that innocent people sometimes confess—and understanding why can completely change how a case is viewed.
A confident eyewitness can be extraordinarily persuasive to a jury. But when that confidence developed—and what happened after the witness first saw the suspect—can matter as much as how certain the witness appears in court.
Social media posts can survive for years through screenshots, account records and other copies. When a lawsuit, criminal case or other dispute begins, an old post can become evidence with consequences its author never anticipated.
Two cameras can record the same event and make it look completely different. Angle, timing, sound, missing seconds and perspective can turn video evidence into the beginning of a courtroom dispute rather than the end of one.
A doorbell camera installed to protect one home can capture a crash, theft, missing person or crime involving complete strangers. That ordinary recording can later become important evidence in someone else’s case.
A mistaken identification, shared name, bad database entry or flawed investigation can put an innocent person in handcuffs. What happens when police arrest the wrong person—and the mistake is not discovered immediately?
A lawsuit can begin with one accident, one employee or one disputed transaction and uncover evidence of a much larger problem. Discovery can expose internal records, repeated complaints, hidden patterns and conduct nobody expected to find.
Police can search many things after making a lawful arrest, but a smartphone is different. Here is why the Supreme Court generally requires a warrant before officers search the digital contents of an arrested person's phone.
A witness can look directly at a defendant and sincerely say, “That's the person I saw,” yet still be mistaken. Decades of wrongful-conviction cases have changed what courts know about eyewitness memory and certainty.
An ordinary photograph can preserve evidence nobody noticed when it was taken. Reflections, shadows, clocks, clothing, background objects and tiny details can later establish where someone was, when something happened, or whether a story is possible.
Modern investigations can use location data to identify devices near a crime scene, potentially drawing innocent bystanders into an investigation simply because their phones were nearby.
Doorbell cameras, store surveillance systems and home security cameras record far more than crimes against their owners. When something happens nearby, privately recorded video can become important evidence in a police investigation.
