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Full-Text Articles in Law
The Andrea Yates Case: Insanity On Trial, Phillip J. Resnick
The Andrea Yates Case: Insanity On Trial, Phillip J. Resnick
Cleveland State Law Review
On June 20, 2001, Andrea Yates drowned each of her five children in her bathtub. The nation struggled to understand how a loving mother could systematically kill her children in apparent cold blood. No crime evokes more intense feelings than a mother killing her own children. There was extraordinary media coverage of her trial in Houston, Texas in 2002. Her defense attorneys, George Parnham and Wendell Odom entered a defense of not guilty by reason of insanity (NGRI) to multiple counts of first degree murder with death penalty specifications. The 2002 trial jury verdict of guilty was overturned on appeal. …
Punishing Women: The Promise And Perils Of Contextualized Sentencing For Aboriginal Women In Canada, Toni Williams
Punishing Women: The Promise And Perils Of Contextualized Sentencing For Aboriginal Women In Canada, Toni Williams
Cleveland State Law Review
This article examines the failure of Canadian sentencing reforms to remedy the over-incarceration of Aboriginal woman through exploration of a sentencing methodology that judges may employ to give effect to the reforms: the social contextualization of women's lawbreaking. Social context analysis developed as a critique of how the state controls and punishes women and as a way to expose failures of justice. More recently, commentators have suggested that the insertion of social context analysis into the sentencing process might allow courts to find new and more robust justifications for lowering the penalties they impose on women lawbreakers from marginalized communities. …