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Full-Text Articles in Law
Rehabilitating Charge Bargaining, Nancy Amoury Combs
Rehabilitating Charge Bargaining, Nancy Amoury Combs
Faculty Publications
Nobody likes plea bargaining. Scholars worldwide have excoriated the practice, calling it coercive and unjust, among other pejorative adjectives. Despite its unpopularity, plea bargaining constitutes a central component of the American criminal justice system, and the United States has exported the practice to a host of countries worldwide. Indeed, plea bargaining has even appeared at international criminal tribunals, created to prosecute genocide and crimes against humanity--the gravest crimes known to humankind. Although all forms of plea bargaining are unpopular, commentators reserve their harshest criticism for charge bargaining because charge bargaining is said to distort the factual basis of the defendant's …
Unequal Enforcement Of The Law: Targeting Aggressors For Mass Atrocity Prosecutions, Nancy Amoury Combs
Unequal Enforcement Of The Law: Targeting Aggressors For Mass Atrocity Prosecutions, Nancy Amoury Combs
Faculty Publications
It is a central tenet of the laws of war that they apply equally to all parties to a conflict. For this reason, a party that illegally launches a war benefits from all the same rights as a party that must defend against the illegal aggression. Countless philosophers have shown that this so-called equal application doctrine is morally indefensible and that defenders should have more rights and fewer responsibilities than aggressors. The equal application doctrine retains the support of legal scholars, however, because they reasonably fear that applying different rules to different warring parties will substantially reduce overall compliance with …
Deconstructing The Epistemic Challenges To Mass Atrocity Prosecutions, Nancy Amoury Combs
Deconstructing The Epistemic Challenges To Mass Atrocity Prosecutions, Nancy Amoury Combs
Faculty Publications
Mass atrocity prosecutions are credited with advancing a host of praiseworthy objectives. They are believed to impose much-needed retribution, deter future atrocities, and affirm the rule of law in previously lawless societies. However, mass atrocity prosecutions will accomplish none of these laudable ends unless they are able to find accurate facts. Convicting the appropriate individuals of the appropriate crimes is a necessary and foundational condition for the success of mass atrocity prosecutions. But it is a condition that is frequently difficult to meet, as mass atrocity prosecutions are often bedeviled by pervasive and invidious obstacles to accurate fact-finding. This Article …