Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Law Commons

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Articles 1 - 10 of 10

Full-Text Articles in Law

The Moral Ambiguity Of Public Prosecution, Gabriel S. Mendlow Mar 2021

The Moral Ambiguity Of Public Prosecution, Gabriel S. Mendlow

Articles

Classic crimes like theft and assault are in the first instance wrongs against individuals, not against the state or the polity that it represents. Yet our legal system denies crime victims the right to initiate or intervene in the criminal process, relegating them to the roles of witness or bystander—even as the system treats prosecution as an institutional analog of the interpersonal processes of moral blame and accountability, which give pride of place to those most directly wronged. Public prosecution reigns supreme, with the state claiming primary and exclusive moral standing to call offenders to account for their wrongs. Although …


May The State Punish What It May Not Prevent?, Gabriel S. Mendlow Jul 2020

May The State Punish What It May Not Prevent?, Gabriel S. Mendlow

Articles

In Why Is It Wrong To Punish Thought? I defended an overlooked principle of criminalization that I called the Enforceability Constraint. The Enforceability Constraint holds that the state may punish transgressions of a given type only if the state in principle may forcibly disrupt such transgressions on the ground that they are criminal wrongs. As I argued in the essay, the reason why the state is forbidden from punishing thought is that the state is forbidden from forcibly disrupting a person’s mental states on the ground that they are criminally wrongful (as opposed to, say, on the ground that they …


Divine Justice And The Library Of Babel: Or, Was Al Capone Really Punished For Tax Evasion?, Gabriel Mendlow Oct 2018

Divine Justice And The Library Of Babel: Or, Was Al Capone Really Punished For Tax Evasion?, Gabriel Mendlow

Articles

A criminal defendant enjoys an array of legal rights. These include the right not to be punished for an offense unless charged, tried, and proved guilty beyond a reasonable doubt; the right not to be punished disproportionately; and the right not to be punished for the same offense more than once. I contend that the design of our criminal legal system imperils these rights in ways few observers appreciate. Because criminal codes describe misconduct imprecisely and prohibit more misconduct than any legislature actually aspires to punish, prosecutors decide which violations of the code merit punishment, and judges decide how much …


How Feminist Theory Became (Criminal) Law: Tracing The Path To Mandatory Criminal Intervention In Domestic Violence Cases, Claire Houston Oct 2014

How Feminist Theory Became (Criminal) Law: Tracing The Path To Mandatory Criminal Intervention In Domestic Violence Cases, Claire Houston

Michigan Journal of Gender & Law

Our popular understanding of domestic violence has shifted significantly over the past forty years, and with it, our legal response. We have moved from an interpretation of domestic violence as a private relationship problem managed through counseling techniques to an approach that configures domestic violence first and foremost as a public crime. Mandatory criminal intervention policies reflect and reinforce this interpretation. How we arrived at this point, and which understanding of domestic violence facilitated this shift, is the focus of this Article. I argue that the move to intense criminalization has been driven by a distinctly feminist interpretation of domestic …


On Strict Liability Crimes: Preserving A Moral Framework For Criminal Intent In An Intent-Free Moral World, W. Robert Thomas Feb 2012

On Strict Liability Crimes: Preserving A Moral Framework For Criminal Intent In An Intent-Free Moral World, W. Robert Thomas

Michigan Law Review

The law has long recognized a presumption against criminal strict liability. This Note situates that presumption in terms of moral intuitions about the role of intention and the unique nature of criminal punishment. Two sources-recent laws from state legislatures and recent advances in moral philosophy-pose distinct challenges to the presumption against strict liability crimes. This Note offers a solution to the philosophical problem that informs how courts could address the legislative problem. First, it argues that the purported problem from philosophy stems from a mistaken relationship drawn between criminal law and morality. Second, it outlines a slightly more nuanced moral …


Corporations, Criminal Law And The Color Of Money, Joseph Vining Jan 1997

Corporations, Criminal Law And The Color Of Money, Joseph Vining

Articles

This part of From Newton's Sleep, published by Princeton University Press in 1995 and in a paperback edition in early 1997, is reprinted by permission of the publisher. From Newton's Sleep is a book on the legal form of thought and its meaning for science and religion. It consists of some two hundred and fifty self-contained pieces arranged in eight sections. In its form, the book is much like and is meant to be much like the material with which lawyers routinely deal. Here, Law Quadrangle Notes excerpts a piece that touches on a subject of lively debate today, among …


Lessons For The United States: A Greek Cypriot Model For Domestic Violence Law, Joan L. Neisser Jan 1996

Lessons For The United States: A Greek Cypriot Model For Domestic Violence Law, Joan L. Neisser

Michigan Journal of Gender & Law

The purpose of this Article is twofold: to view the problem of domestic violence victims not wishing to testify against their abusers through the lenses of different feminist perspectives; and to use the Greek Cypriot experience as a model to test the value of these theories when developing legal policies addressing this issue.


Power/Violence, Peg Birmingham Dec 1991

Power/Violence, Peg Birmingham

Cardozo Law Review

Roundtable - The Call to the Ethical: Deconstruction, Justice and the Ethical Relationship - Group 1


Introducing Criminal Law, Stephen J. Morse May 1989

Introducing Criminal Law, Stephen J. Morse

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Bad Acts and Guilty Minds: Conundrums of the Criminal Law by Leo Katz, and Crime, Guilt, and Punishment: A Philosophical Introduction by C.L. Ten


Theory And Application Of Roscoe Pound's Sociological Jurisprudence: Crime Prevention Or Control?, Louis H. Masotti, Michael A. Weinstein Apr 1969

Theory And Application Of Roscoe Pound's Sociological Jurisprudence: Crime Prevention Or Control?, Louis H. Masotti, Michael A. Weinstein

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

The current interest in reforming the administration of justice has been triggered by a number of factors including the 1967 report of the President's Commission on Law Enforcement and the Administration of Justice and the treatment afforded arrestees during the civil disorders of the past few years. The nation is alarmed at the reported annual increases in crime, and this alarm was manifested in the 1968 presidential election when "law and order" became a major issue. Superficially the answer may seem clear: more effective enforcement of the law and, when necessary, more stringent laws. The critical issue, however, is a …