US government website to provide information on sex offenders News
US government website to provide information on sex offenders

[JURIST] Attorney General Alberto Gonzales [official website] announced Friday, while acknowledging National Missing Children's Day [DOJ press release], that a new federal website would provide state-by-state information on known sex offenders within two months. The website, with voluntary participation by states, will allow someone to do a national search online to determine if a convicted sex criminal has moved from one state to another. The system is designed to add some degree of uniformity to the many state methods of notification; Oregon currently provides information only over the phone while others have statewide websites that provide different degrees of access to information. AP has more.

THIS DAY @ LAW

Thomas Becket, former Chancellor of England, murdered by Henry II's knights

On December 29, 1170, Archbishop Thomas Becket, former Chancellor of England, was murdered in Canterbury Cathedral by knights acting in the name of Henry II.

Becket and Henry had been entangled in a power struggle over, among other things, criminal jurisdiction over clergy. Read a contemporary account of the murder of Thomas Becket.

Texas attains US statehood

On December 29, 1845, Texas became the twenty-eighth state to join the United States of America when US President James K. Polk signed the Ordinance of Annexation. Texas had a complicated path to statehood because it had formerly been part of Mexico and then an independent republic. The US Congress passed the Annexation of the Republic of Texas Joint Resolution on March 1, 1845. Voters in Texas then approved the Ordinance of Annexation in October, before it was approved by the US Congress and signed into law by President Polk on this day in 1845. The US Supreme Court later ruled in Texas v. White that, despite its unique path to statehood, Texas did not have the right to secede from the union.