Also known as: spouses · spousal · husband · wife · married person
Written by attorneys · grounded in primary & secondary sources — see below
One's husband or wife by lawful marriage.
Samuel Soto returned home early and found his wife in bed with another man. Overcome by sudden rage, he immediately stabbed the man to death. The discovery of the spouse in the act supplied the adequate provocation that reduced the charge from murder to voluntary manslaughter.
Judge Solomon Silver learned that his spouse owned shares in Sentinel Security, a defendant in a pending contract dispute. Because the spouse held an economic interest in a party, the judge stepped aside rather than preside over the case.
Select any source to read its text and confirm it supports the definition.
Attorney Sasha Stone prepared a will for an elderly client that left a substantial bequest to Stone's own spouse. Because the spouse was not related to the client, the drafting violated the prohibition on preparing instruments that confer substantial gifts on the lawyer's relatives.
Simon Stern and his fiancée received a deed conveying land to them as two persons who might become husband and wife. The conveyance satisfied the statutory condition for creating a joint tenancy with right of survivorship in their future marital unit.
Stella Shapiro wrote a detailed letter to her husband describing business dealings. When prosecutors later sought to introduce the letter at trial, the court upheld the marital communications privilege and excluded the document from evidence.
Serena Soto obtained a spousal-support order in State A. After moving to State B, she asked the local tribunal to increase the amount. The court refused because the issuing state retained continuing exclusive jurisdiction over the order.
Yes. The privilege protects confidential communications made during the marriage even after the marriage ends. Either spouse may assert it to prevent disclosure.
A surviving spouse takes the whole estate when the decedent leaves no surviving parents and either no descendants or only descendants who are also descendants of the surviving spouse. The presence of the spouse's descendants from another relationship reduces the share.
No. The judge must disqualify when the spouse has an economic interest in the subject matter or in a party to the proceeding.
Only if the spouse is related to the client. Otherwise the rule prohibits the lawyer from preparing an instrument that gives the lawyer or the lawyer's spouse a substantial gift.
Yes. Discovery of a spouse in the act of adultery is one of the classic forms of adequate provocation that can reduce murder to voluntary manslaughter.
…North Carolina, for example, N. C. Gen. Stat. § 14-45.1 (Supp. 1971), requires written permission for the abortion from the husband when the woman is a married minor, that is, when she is less than 18 years of age, 41 N. C. A. G. 489 (1971); if the woman is an unmarried minor, written permission from the parents is…