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Full-Text Articles in Law
Do We Know How To Punish?, Benjamin L. Apt
Do We Know How To Punish?, Benjamin L. Apt
Benjamin L. Apt
A number of current theories attempt to explain the purpose and need for criminal punishment. All of them depend on some sort of normative basis in justifying why the state may penalize people found guilty of crimes. Yet each of these theories lacks an epistemological foundation; none of them explains how we can know what form punishments should take. The article analyses the epistemological gaps in the predominant theories of punishment: retributivism, including limited-retributivism; and consequentialism in its various versions, ranging from deterrence to the reparative theories such as restorative justice and rehabilitation. It demonstrates that the common putative epistemological …
Tell Us A Story, But Don't Make It A Good One: Resolving The Confusion Regarding Emotional Stories And Federal Rule Of Evidence 403, Cathren Page
Cathren Page
Abstract: Tell Us a Story, But Don’t Make It A Good One: Resolving the Confusion Regarding Emotional Stories and Federal Rule of Evidence 403 by Cathren Koehlert-Page Courts need to reword their opinions regarding Rule 403 to address the tension between the advice to tell an emotionally evocative story at trial and the notion that evidence can be excluded if it is too emotional. In the murder mystery Mystic River, Dave Boyle is kidnapped in the beginning. The audience feels empathy for Dave who as an adult becomes one of the main suspects in the murder of his friend Jimmy’s …
Beyond Finality: How Making Criminal Judgments Less Final Can Further The Interests Of Finality, Andrew Chongseh Kim
Beyond Finality: How Making Criminal Judgments Less Final Can Further The Interests Of Finality, Andrew Chongseh Kim
Andrew Chongseh Kim
Courts and scholars commonly assume that granting convicted defendants more liberal rights to challenge their judgments would harm society’s interests in “finality.” According to conventional wisdom, finality in criminal judgments is necessary to conserve resources, encourage efficient behavior by defense counsel, and deter crime. Thus, under the common analysis, the extent to which convicted defendants should be allowed to challenge their judgments depends on how much society is willing to sacrifice to validate defendants’ rights. This Article argues that expanding defendants’ rights on post-conviction review does not always harm these interests. Rather, more liberal review can often conserve state resources, …
Medical Paternalism And The Rule Of Law: A Reply To Dr. Relman, Charles Baron
Medical Paternalism And The Rule Of Law: A Reply To Dr. Relman, Charles Baron
Charles H. Baron
In this Article, Professor Baron challenges the position taken recently by Dr. Arnold Relman in this journal that the 1977 Saikewicz decision of the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts was incorrect in calling for routine judicial resolution of decisions whether to provide life-prolonging treatment to terminally ill incompetent patients. First, Professor Baron argues that Dr. Relman's position that doctors should make such decisions is based upon an outmoded, paternalistic view of the doctor-patient relationship. Second, he points out the importance of guaranteeing to such decisions the special qualities of process which characterize decision making by courts and which are not …
Assuring "Detached But Passionate Investigation And Decision": The Role Of Guardians Ad Litem In Saikewicz-Type Cases, Charles Baron
Assuring "Detached But Passionate Investigation And Decision": The Role Of Guardians Ad Litem In Saikewicz-Type Cases, Charles Baron
Charles H. Baron
The author focuses this Article upon the aspect of the Saikewicz decision which determines that the kind of "proxy consent" question involved in that case required for its decision "the process of detached but passionate investigation and decision that forms the ideal on which the judicial branch of government was created." This aspect of the decision has drawn much criticism from the medical community on the ground that it embroils what doctors believe to be a medical question in the adversarial processes of the court system. The author criticizes the decision from an entirely opposite perspective, arguing that the court's …
The Lawyer Rent-Seeker Myth And Public Policy, Teresa J. Schmid
The Lawyer Rent-Seeker Myth And Public Policy, Teresa J. Schmid
Teresa J Schmid
ABSTRACT Two enduring fallacies in public policy are that lawyers are rent seekers who impair rather than stimulate the economy, and that there are too many of them. While lawyers may disagree with the first premise, they tacitly accept the second. These two fallacies have led leaders in both the political and professional arenas to adopt policies that impair access to justice. This study documents the negative effects of those policies and recommends courses of action to reverse those effects.
Ideological Voting Applied To The School Desegregation Cases In The Federal Courts Of Appeals From The 1960’S And 70’S, Joe Custer
Joe Custer
This paper considers a research suggestion from Cass Sunstein to analyze segregation cases from the 1960's and 1970's and whether three hypothesis he projected in the article "Ideological Voting on Federal Courts of Appeals: A Preliminary Investigation," 90 Va. L. Rev. 301 (2004), involving various models of judicial ideology, would pertain. My paper considers Sunstein’s three hypotheses in addition to other judicial ideologies to try to empirically determine what was influencing Federal Court of Appeals Judges in regard to Civil Rights issues, specifically school desegregation, in the 1960’s and 1970’s.
A New Public Interest Appellate Model: Public Counsel’S Court-Based Self-Help Clinic And Pro Bono “Triage” For Indigent Pro Se Civil Litigants On Appeal, Meehan Rasch
Meehan Rasch
A variety of new “pro se” or “pro bono” appellate programs have been sprouting up around the country in recent years. Courts, bar associations, and legal services and advocacy organizations are implementing these projects to grapple with the challenges raised by increasing numbers of pro se (self-represented) and indigent civil litigants in appellate courts. Judicial operational systems designed on the premise of adequately counseled parties are ill-prepared to handle an influx of self-represented litigants, posing frustrations for both pro se litigants and court personnel. The expansion of pro se litigation strains appellate court resources and staff, but because of the …