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The Culpability Of Felony Murder, Guyora Binder
The Culpability Of Felony Murder, Guyora Binder
Journal Articles
Legal scholars are almost unanimous in condemning felony murder as a morally indefensible form of strict liability. This Article provides the long-missing principled defense of the felony murder doctrine. It argues that felony murder liability is deserved for killing negligently by means of a violent or apparently dangerous felony involving an additional malign purpose independent of physical injury to the victim killed. This claim follows from the simple idea that the guilt incurred in attacking or endangering others depends on one’s reasons for doing so. The article develops this idea into an expressive theory of culpability that assesses blame for …
The Rhetoric Of Motive And Intent, Guyora Binder
The Rhetoric Of Motive And Intent, Guyora Binder
Journal Articles
This article offers a critical analysis of the traditional maxim that motive is irrelevant to criminal liability. It retraces the history of this principle to show how its meaning has changed and its validity has declined over time. Originally promoted by reformers, the irrelevance of motive maxim derived meaning from their efforts to codify criminal law. In this context, the irrelevance of motive stood for two related reforms: (1) legislators should condition criminal liability on expectations of harm rather than desires, and (2) courts should require proof of statutory mental elements. With the success of codification, however, the irrelevance of …
Felony Murder And Mens Rea Default Rules: A Study In Statutory Interpretation, Guyora Binder
Felony Murder And Mens Rea Default Rules: A Study In Statutory Interpretation, Guyora Binder
Journal Articles
The Model Penal Code's influential approach to culpability included default rules assigning a culpable mental state to every conduct, circumstance and result element of each offense. Such rules have been enacted in half of the American states. The Code's drafters also rejected what they understood to be the felony murder rule's imposition of "a form of strict liability for... homicide." Yet almost every state has retained some form of the felony murder rule and so repudiated the Model Penal Code's proposed reform. Because the Model Penal Code's disapproval of felony murder flows from its general disapproval of strict liability, the …