Deborah England is a litigator with 20 years of employment law experience. She has published numerous articles and essays on employment and civil rights law, and frequently speaks on these topics before legal and HR professional organizations. England makes her home in the San Francisco Bay Area.
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Articles By Deborah C. England
In the U.S. legal system, a person may be punished for a crime only if she has been convicted of a crime, that is, found criminally liable. This article discusses what constitutes criminal liability. For a discussion of civil liability, see our article on Civil Liability.
“Privilege” has a special meaning under the law: protection from being forced to testify about communications between yourself and a person with whom you have a special relationship, such as a spouse.
Perjury, the crime of lying under oath, is a serious offense because it can derail the basic goal of the justice system—discovering the truth. Learn what perjury is and how it's punished.
Interfering with a witness’s testimony or cooperation in a criminal case is a criminal act that can be misdemeanor or a felony. Intimidating or tampering with a witness involves trying to get a witness to lie, say certain things under oath, alter or destroy evidence, or not testify.
New Jersey has a specific law prohibiting nonconsensual pornography, also known as revenge porn or cyber exploitation.
California has specifically outlawed revenge porn.
Revenge porn is illegal in Arizona, where it is a crime to post or disclose explicit images of another person in order to harass that person.
Arkansas criminalizes "video voyeurism," and punishes it more severely when the perpetrator shares the image with another person.
The U.S. Supreme Court struck down a law preventing registered sex offenders from using social media such as Facebook and Instagram.
Anyone who harasses another person using an electronic form of communication commits a crime in Florida. Florida law also prohibits bullying (including cyberbullying via electronic means) at public schools and directs each school to enact an anti-bullying policy.