Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
- Discipline
-
- Criminal Law (20)
- Constitutional Law (8)
- Legal History (8)
- Law Enforcement and Corrections (7)
- Jurisprudence (6)
-
- Law and Society (6)
- Comparative and Foreign Law (5)
- Legislation (5)
- Public Law and Legal Theory (5)
- Supreme Court of the United States (5)
- Criminal Procedure (4)
- Law and Philosophy (4)
- Human Rights Law (3)
- Civil Rights and Discrimination (2)
- Courts (2)
- Juvenile Law (2)
- Law and Race (2)
- Litigation (2)
- Medical Jurisprudence (2)
- Military, War, and Peace (2)
- Religion Law (2)
- State and Local Government Law (2)
- Torts (2)
- Administrative Law (1)
- African American Studies (1)
- Anthropology (1)
- Antitrust and Trade Regulation (1)
- Arts and Humanities (1)
- Bankruptcy Law (1)
- Institution
Articles 31 - 46 of 46
Full-Text Articles in Law
Rethinking The Penalty Phase, Kyron Huigens
Rethinking The Penalty Phase, Kyron Huigens
Articles
This article argues that the chaos of the US Supreme Court’s death penalty jurisprudence can be sorted with the use of a single point of clarification. That jurisprudence uses the term “culpability” – and similar terms, such as desert, responsibility, and blameworthiness – without regard to a critical ambiguity. We use “culpability” to refer to fault in wrongdoing, as reflected in “culpability elements” such as purpose or recklessness. We also use culpability to refer to eligibility for punishment, which is at issue in the defenses of insanity or minority. Death sentencing is structured around aggravating and mitigating factors, but aggravation …
Weak Legs: Misbehavior Before The Enemy, William I. Miller
Weak Legs: Misbehavior Before The Enemy, William I. Miller
Articles
Making cowardice a capital offense strikes us as a kind of barbaric survival from a rougher age, a time, that is, when few doubted that courage ranked higher than pity or prudence in the scale of virtues. And if many of us today believe that capital punishment cannot be justified even for the sadistic torturer, what a shock to discover that, as an official matter at least, Congress reserves it for the person who cannot kill at all.
Living With The Death Penalty, Samuel R. Gross
Living With The Death Penalty, Samuel R. Gross
Articles
The debate over the death penalty in the United States - such as it is - is framed in terms of criminal justice policy. The issues are the same ones we consider when the question is the length of prison sentence for a drug crime: Does the defendant deserve the penalty? Is it cost effective by comparison to other available sanctions? Will it deter others from committing the crimes for which he was convicted? Can we impose this punishment fairly? Can we make sure that innocent people are not condemned?
Hard Cases, Carl E. Schneider
Hard Cases, Carl E. Schneider
Articles
Robert Latimer was born in 1953 on a farm on the prairies of Saskatchewan and grew up to own a 1,280-acre farm. In 1980 he married, and that year Tracy, the first of four children, was born. During her birth, Tracy's brain was terribly damaged by lack of oxygen, and severe cerebral palsy ensued. By 1993 Tracy could laugh, smile, and cry, and she could recognize her parents and her siblings. But she could not understand her own name or even simple words like "yes" and "no." She could not swallow well and would so often vomit her parents kept …
An Epilogue To The Age Of Pound, Thomas A. Green
An Epilogue To The Age Of Pound, Thomas A. Green
Articles
Doubts about the reality of criminal offenders' autonomy have sometimes played a role in the movement to abolish, or greatly reduce the reach of, the sanction of capital punishment.
Freedom And Criminal Responsibility In The Age Of Pound: An Essay On Criminal Justice, Thomas A. Green
Freedom And Criminal Responsibility In The Age Of Pound: An Essay On Criminal Justice, Thomas A. Green
Articles
The concept of freedom has two main aspects: political liberty and freedom of the will. I am concerned here with the latter, although - as these two aspects of freedom are not entirely unrelated to each other - I shall touch also on the former. Enough has been written from a philosophical perspective on the relationship between free will and the law that it is not easy to justify yet another such undertaking. But there may still be room for some informal observations on the manner in which doubts about the concept of freedom of the will affected discussion of …
The 'Right To Die': A Catchy But Confusing Slogan, Yale Kamisar
The 'Right To Die': A Catchy But Confusing Slogan, Yale Kamisar
Articles
Some 30 years ago an eminent constitutional law scholar Charles L. Black, Jr., spoke of "toiling uphill against that heaviest of all argumental weights-the weight of a slogan. I am reminded of that observation when I confront the slogan the "right to die." Few rallying cries or slogans are more appealing and seductive than the "right to die." But few are more fuzzy, more misleading, and more misunderstood.
The Romance Of Revenge: Capital Punishment In America, Samuel R. Gross
The Romance Of Revenge: Capital Punishment In America, Samuel R. Gross
Articles
On February 17, 1992, Jeffrey Dahmer was sentenced to 15 consecutive terms of life imprisonment for killing and dismembering 15 young men and boys (Associated Press 1992a). Dahmer had been arrested six months earlier, on July 22, 1991. On January 13 he pled guilty to the fifteen murder counts against him, leaving open only the issue of his sanity. Jury selection began two weeks later, and the trial proper started on January 30. The jury heard two weeks of testimony about murder, mutilation and necrophilia; they deliberated for 5 hours before finding that Dahmer was sane when he committed these …
Jewish Law And The State’S Authority To Punish Crime, J. David Bleich
Jewish Law And The State’S Authority To Punish Crime, J. David Bleich
Articles
No abstract provided.
Dreams, Prophecy And Sorcery: Blaming The Secret Offender In Medieval Iceland, William I. Miller
Dreams, Prophecy And Sorcery: Blaming The Secret Offender In Medieval Iceland, William I. Miller
Articles
An eminent legal historian once noted that the fundamental problem of law enforcement in primitive societies is that of the secret offender. The Icelandic legal and dispute processing systems depended on a wrongdoer publishing his deed, or at least committing it in an open and notorious manner. No state agencies existed to investigate and discover the non-publishing wrongdoer. But there were strong normative inducements to wrong openly; one's name was at stake. There was absolutely no honor in thievery, only the darkest shame; the ransmadr, on the other hand, suffered no shame for his successful raids, even if he did …
Some Impressions And Reflections On Observing Legal Proceedings In The People's Republic Of China, Christina B. Whitman, Sallyanne Payton
Some Impressions And Reflections On Observing Legal Proceedings In The People's Republic Of China, Christina B. Whitman, Sallyanne Payton
Articles
Very few foreign visitors have been allowed an opportunity to observe legal proceedings in the People's Republic of China. We were included in the first American group ever favored with a professional exchange legal tour. During the month of May 1977, we spent three weeks in China with a group of Black American judges and lawyers, headed by the Hon. George C. Crockett, Jr., Judge of the Recorder's Court of Detroit. Since we ourselves would be skeptical of the claim of a visitor to the United States who purported to have "studied" the American legal process during the course of …
A Reflection Upon Amnesty / The Case For Alternative Service: A Reply To Professor Sax, Douglas A. Kahn
A Reflection Upon Amnesty / The Case For Alternative Service: A Reply To Professor Sax, Douglas A. Kahn
Articles
Professor Sax advocates that unconditional amnesty should be granted to Vietnam draft evaders and deserters, and he contends that the condition of alternative service imposed by President Ford, while superficially attractive to some, is unsupported by an acceptable rationale. While I harbor misgivings concerning the grant of any type of amnesty for Vietnam evaders and deserters, I have concluded that amnesty should be given provided that it is conditioned on the performance of some service such as that required by President Ford's program. Obviously, this places me squarely at issue with Professor Sax, and I will attempt to detail the …
The Reincarnation Of The Death Penalty: Is It Possible?, Yale Kamisar
The Reincarnation Of The Death Penalty: Is It Possible?, Yale Kamisar
Articles
Fifty years ago Clarence Darrow, probably the greatest criminal defense lawyer in American history and a leading opponent of capital punishment, observed: The question of capital punishment has been the subject of endless discussion and will probably never be settled so long as men believe in punishment. Some states have abolished and then reinstated it; some have enjoyed capital punishment for long periods of time and finally prohibited the use of it. The reasons why it cannot be settled are plain. There is first of all no agreement as to the objects of punishment. Next there is no way to …
The Standard Oil Fine, Horace Lafayette Wilgus
The Standard Oil Fine, Horace Lafayette Wilgus
Articles
August 3, 1907, Judge Landis, in the United States District Court, for the Northern District of Illinois, sentenced the Standard Oil Co. to pay the largest fine ever inflicted upon any offender.1 The suit was an indictment on 1,903 counts for violations of the Elkins Rebate Law in receiving concessions on the movement of 1,903 cars of oil from Whiting, Indiana, to East St. Louis, Illinois, and from Chappell, Illinois, to St. Louis, Missouri, during the eighteen months between September I, 1903, and March 1, 1905. Four hundred and forty-one counts were withdrawn as not necessarily involved in this case. …
The Legal Status Of The Teacher, Floyd R. Mechem
The Legal Status Of The Teacher, Floyd R. Mechem
Articles
Prof. Mechem's address on the status of public and private school teachers.
Extradition, Thomas M. Cooley
Extradition, Thomas M. Cooley
Articles
The policy of returning for trial and punishment the criminal of one country who has escaped to another, is not less manifest than its justice. It would seem, therefore, that there ought to be no great difficulty in agreeing upon the proper international regulations for the purpose. This, ho:wever, has until recently been practically an impossibility. While the leading nations of Christendom were engaged for a very large proportion of the time in inflicting upon each other all the mischief possible, it was not to be expected that they would be solicitous to assist in the enforcement of their respective …