With great power comes great responsibility, and also greater legal headaches. This category contains all important laws, agencies and institutions relating to supervillainy and superheroism.
The Blackstone Special Federal Penitentiary is the special maximum-security federal prison designed to incarcerate criminals with demonstrated superpowers. The Penitentiary, which first opened its doors in 1964, resides about a mile and a half off the coast on isolated Blackstone island; the majority of the facility is underground and under heavy guard at all times.
The lamplighter statutes are a series of laws that allow superheroes the right to open avenues of inquiry into matters that ordinary citizens would not be able to access, such as ongoing criminal investigations. These laws do not automatically guarantee access, but they allow superheroes to aid law enforcement officers much more readily, and in fact were originally lobbied for by the Freedom City police force.
During the case The People of California vs. Master Mind, it was ruled that any information gathered by means of mind reading could not be administered as evidence. However, it could be entered as "eyewitness" testimony. To do this, the witness must first prove that they do in fact possess mind reading abilities just after being sworn in, but before providing any actual testimony. Usually this is done by simply asking the witness’ attending liaison from the National Para-Humans Agency if in fact the witness possesses mind reading ability.
This was further complicated during the case of The People of New York vs. The Floating Brain when the mindreading, cyborg hero known as Robotronik produced a video tape of his mental readings that showed that the man being prosecuting was not in fact The Floating Brain, but that The Floating Brain was in fact NYC District Attorney Dan Marsh. The Supreme Court has yet to rule on the legality of entering videotaped mindreading sessions as evidence and Dan Marsh currently awaits his day in court.
Even with all of this, lawyers and judges both are loathe to allow mind readers to take the stand. This is not just out of professional paranoia, but due to the fact that any evidence of mind reading during open court is considered immediate grounds for a mistrial. There have been many cases where the opposing lawyer filed for mistrial based on grounds of mind reading when it appeared their case was going to lose. The most famous of these was The People of Maryland vs. Krab King, where the defending attorney successfully claimed that the vigilante Mentallica was using her mental powers against him in order to aid the prosecution. The Krab King today remains at large.
The main job of this federal agency is to keep tabs on super-powered being operating within the United States, for purposes of legal tracking. While it is strictly voluntary, all supers are strongly encouraged to register with the agency. Without registration, a super cannot testify in a United States court of law without first revealing their "true" identity (which in and of itself would probably warrant a mistrial).
With registration, a super is assigned to liaison at the NPHA, who takes note of the hero’s identity, powers (if any), and testifies in court that they are who they say they are. This is their primary purpose.
In an attempt to encourage more participation with the NPHA, Congress recently passed legislation exempting registered heroes from costs associated with "reasonable" collateral damage incurred during the arrest of a criminal or supervillain, the costs instead being transferred to the criminal.
Technically speaking, any vigilante can register with the agency, not just those with superpowers. But few non-supers bother with this type of bureaucracy or even the niceties of the U.S. justice system.
The famous case of The People of The United States vs. Devastato set forth in motion the process by which costumed supers may legally take the stand under the guise of their superhero identity rather than their normal identity. During this case, the then President of the United States, Bill Clinton, testified that the man taking the stand was in fact the costumed vigilante known as Black Panther, who had previously saved him and his children during Devastato’s attack.
Having no other clear means of further prosecuting Devastato (aka Richard Hargreaves) without Black Panther’s testimony, the judge made an ad hoc ruling that a costumed super may testify in court under his or her assumed identity (i.e., their superhero name) if an appropriate member of the federal government also testifies that the entity taking the stand is, in fact, the entity in question and if in fact the entity could be considered a U.S. citizen.
In the wake of this trial, the National Para-Humans Agency was created.
Built on an indian burial ground and allegedly home to devil-worshippers during at least one point in its checkered past, the Providence Asylum's dark background seems oddly fitting for its current occupation as an insane asylum. Most of the patients there are nothing more than harmless schizophrenics or catatonics, but the Asylum has also played host to some more noteable maniacs. It is one of the few institutions in the United States qualified to treat insane supervillains.
However, last year, several patients and one doctor vanished after a strange assault by a villain calling herself the White Lady and her minions. No explanation for the attack was uncovered.
This law was passed to protect people who have been forced, through the use of someone else's superpowers, to committing crimes they would otherwise never have taken part in. Under its tenets, people who are arrested as minions of a supervillain and can prove conclusively that they were forced to do so through mental control and domination, or the exertion of similar compelling superpowers, can be exhonorated from the charges levied against them, and the charges instead applied to the supervillain who held them in thrall.
Historically, the courts have sided with reasonable doubt in terms of conclusive proof of mental control.