Law Commons^™

Criminal Responsibility, Ken Levy

Book Sections

No abstract provided.

Restitution And The Excessive Fines Clause, Kevin Bennardo

Louisiana Law Review

The article offers solutions to further the conversation regarding the U.S. constitution's Eighth Amendment's limits on restitution. Topics discussed include application of Excessive Fines Clause; the case law interpreting the Excessive Fines Clause of the Eighth Amendment; and ways in which Excessive Fines Clause should be applied to restitution in criminal cases.

It’S Not Too Difficult: A Plea To Resurrect The Impossibility Defense, Ken Levy

All Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Dangerous Psychopaths: Criminally Responsible But Not Morally Responsible, Subject To Criminal Punishment And To Preventive Detention, Ken M. Levy

Journal Articles

How should we judge psychopaths, both morally and in the criminal justice system? This Article will argue that psychopaths are generally not morally responsible for their bad acts simply because they cannot understand, and therefore be guided by, moral reasons.

Scholars and lawyers who endorse the same conclusion automatically tend to infer from this premise that psychopaths should not be held criminally punishable for their criminal acts. These scholars and lawyers are making this assumption (that just criminal punishment requires moral responsibility) on the basis of one of two deeper assumptions: that either criminal punishment directly requires moral responsibility or …

Killing, Letting Die, And The Case For Mildly Punishing Bad Samaritanism, Ken M. Levy

Journal Articles

For over a century now, American scholars (among others) have been debating the merits of “bad-samaritan” laws – laws punishing people for failing to attempt “easy rescues.” Unfortunately, the opponents of bad-samaritan laws have mostly prevailed. In the United States, the “no-duty-to-rescue” rule dominates. Only four states even have bad-samaritan laws, and these laws impose only the most minimal punishment – either sub-$500 fines or short-term imprisonment.

This Article argues that this situation needs to be remedied. Every state should criminalize bad samaritanism. For, first, criminalization is required by the supreme value that we place on protecting human life, a …

The Solution To The Real Blackmail Paradox: The Common Link Between Blackmail And Other Criminal Threats, Ken Levy

Journal Articles

Disclosure of true but reputation-damaging information is generally legal. But threats to disclose true but reputation-damaging information unless payment is made are generally criminal. Most scholars think that this situation is paradoxical because it seems to involve illegality mysteriously arising out of legality, a criminal act mysteriously arising out of an independently legal threat to disclose conjoined with an independently legal demand for money. But this is not quite right. The real paradox raised by the different legal statuses of blackmail threats to disclose and disclosure itself involves a contradiction between our strong intuition that blackmail threats should be criminal …