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Post-Trial Judicial Review Of Criminal Convictions: A Comparative Study Of The United States And Finland, Christopher M. Johnson
Post-Trial Judicial Review Of Criminal Convictions: A Comparative Study Of The United States And Finland, Christopher M. Johnson
Maine Law Review
In 2011, two murder cases involving defendants who professed their innocence came to dramatic conclusions in appellate courts. In Finland in August 2011, the murder prosecution of Anneli Auer ended with her acquittal by an appellate court. In the United States in September 2011, the murder prosecution of Troy Davis ended in his execution in Georgia’s death chamber, despite exculpatory information developed after his trial about the reliability of some eyewitnesses identification evidence. The Finish case arose out if the December 2006 death if Jukka Lahti in Ulvila. His wife, Auer, called the police and claimed that an intruder entered …
Law In Books And Law In Action: The Problem Of Legal Change, Jean-Louis Halperin
Law In Books And Law In Action: The Problem Of Legal Change, Jean-Louis Halperin
Maine Law Review
One hundred years ago, Roscoe Pound wrote his famous article, “Law in Books and Law in Action.” Considered an important step toward American legal realism, today this article is invoked more for its title than its content. I would argue that in the article, Pound did not clearly distinguish between two separate situations: (1) the departure of decisions of courts from statements of statutory (or constitutional) law, and (2) the discrepancy between doctrine in books and empirical data about law. This second observation has fed various strands of jurisprudence, if often only through the repetition of the well-quoted formula. It …
A Comment On Christopher Johnson's "Post-Trial Judicial Review Of Criminal Convictions: A Comparative Study Of The United States And Finland", Malick W. Ghachem
A Comment On Christopher Johnson's "Post-Trial Judicial Review Of Criminal Convictions: A Comparative Study Of The United States And Finland", Malick W. Ghachem
Maine Law Review
Christopher Johnson has dug deeply into a neglected corner of comparative law and emerged with some fascinating and important contrasts. Finland does not appear often on the radar screen of American legal scholars, even those who primarily focus is comparative law. And so we are indebted to Johnson for reminding us that critical comparative insights can arise out of studying the experiences of nations deemed “marginal” to the international system, and to mainstream comparative law scholarship (which itself occupies a position of uncertain import in American legal scholarship generally). Johnson’s findings are all the more significant because they come from …