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Checks And Balances In The Criminal Law, Daniel Epps
Checks And Balances In The Criminal Law, Daniel Epps
Vanderbilt Law Review
The separation of powers is considered essential in the criminal law, where liberty and even life are at stake. Yet the reasons for separating criminal powers are surprisingly opaque, and the “separation of powers” is often used to refer to distinct, and sometimes contradictory, concepts.
This Article reexamines the justifications for the separation of powers in criminal law. It asks what is important about separating criminal powers and what values such separation serves. It concludes that in criminal justice, the traditional Madisonian approach of separating powers between functionally differentiated political institutions—legislature, executive, and judiciary—bears no necessary connection to important values …
Legislative Disqualifications As Bills Of Attainder, Francis D. Wormuth
Legislative Disqualifications As Bills Of Attainder, Francis D. Wormuth
Vanderbilt Law Review
The separation of powers was first introduced into political discussion during the English Civil Wars of the seventeenth century by the political party known as Levellers. The object was to insure that persons be judged by general and prospective rules. If the legislative authority should decide a particular case, it might be tempted through partiality or prejudice to improvise a special rule for the situation. So the separation of powers was intended to achieve that impartiality in government which Aristotle called "the rule of law."
The doctrine of checks and balances was also introduced into political discussion during the Civil …