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plea bargaining

(Encyclopedia)plea bargaining, negotiation in which a defendant agrees to plead guilty to a criminal charge in exchange for concessions by the prosecutor (representing the state). The defendant waives the right to ...

New Britain, city, United States

(Encyclopedia)New Britain, industrial city (1990 pop. 75,491), Hartford co., central Conn.; settled c.1686, inc. 1871. The tin shops and brassworks in the city were established in the 18th cent. New Britain became ...

Reconstruction

(Encyclopedia)Reconstruction, 1865–77, in U.S. history, the period of readjustment following the Civil War. At the end of the Civil War, the defeated South was a ruined land. The physical destruction wrought by t...

police power

(Encyclopedia)police power, in law, right of a government to make laws necessary for the health, morals, and welfare of the populace. The term has greatest currency in the United States, where it has been defined b...

primary

(Encyclopedia)primary, in the United States, a preliminary election in which the candidate of a party is nominated directly by the voters. The establishment of the primary system resulted from the demand to elimina...

Yazoo land fraud

(Encyclopedia)Yazoo land fraud, name given to the sale in 1795 by an act of the Georgia legislature of vast holdings in the Yazoo River country to four land companies following the wholesale bribery of the legislat...

American Samoa

(Encyclopedia)American Samoa, officially Territory of American Samoa, unincorporated territory of the United States (2015 est. pop. 56,000), comprising the eastern half of the Samoa island chain in the South Pacifi...

Clayton-Bulwer Treaty

(Encyclopedia)Clayton-Bulwer Treaty, concluded (Apr. 19, 1850) at Washington, D.C., between the United States, represented by Secretary of State John M. Clayton, and Great Britain, represented by the British plenip...

Tombigbee

(Encyclopedia)Tombigbee tŏmbĭgˈbē [key], river, c.400 mi (640 km) long, rising in NE Miss. and flowing SE into W Alabama, then generally S to join the Alabama River and form the Mobile River before entering int...
 

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