Law Commons^™

The Upside Of Overbreadth, Samuel W. Buell

Faculty Scholarship

Overbreadth in criminal liability rules, especially in federal law, is abundant and much lamented. Overbreadth is avoidable if it results from normative mistakes about how much conduct to criminalize or from insufficient care to limit open texture in statutes. Social planners cannot so easily avoid overbreadth if they cannot reach behaviors for which criminalization is well justified without also reaching behaviors for which it is not. This mismatch problem is acute if persons engaging in properly criminalized behaviors deliberately alter their conduct to avoid punishment and have resources to devote to avoidance efforts. In response to such efforts, legal actors …

The Cultural Defense: Reflections In Light Of The Model Penal Code And The Religious Freedom Restoration Act, Kent Greenawalt

Faculty Scholarship

Much of this essay is an inquiry into just how cultural factors might figure in claims about elements of offenses, justifications, excuses, and mitigations under the Model Penal Code – still the most comprehensive and systematic code of criminal law in the United States. That exploration gives us a sense of how culture may matter for criminal liability absent a specifically labeled "cultural defense"; it also provides an idea of how much could be accomplished by expansions of the standard defenses.

In the latter part of the essay, I think about cultural practices as a potential justification or generalized exemption …