Law Commons^™

When Numbers Lie: The Under-Reporting Of Police Justifiable Homicides, Tiffany R. Murphy

Tiffany R Murphy

From Hit Man To Encyclopedia Of Jihad: How To Distinguish Freedom Of Speech From Terrorist Training, Rodney A. Smolla

Rod Smolla

Not available.

State V. Lawrence, James Seckinger, Frank Rothschild, Deanne Siemer, Frank Rothschild

James H. Seckinger

No abstract provided.

Criminal Case File, State V. O'Neill, James Seckinger

James H. Seckinger

No abstract provided.

Intimate Violence: A Study Of Intersexual Homicide In Chicago, Franklin E. Zimring, Satyanshu K. Mukherjee, Barrik Van Winkle

Franklin E. Zimring

No abstract provided.

Kids, Guns, And Homicide: Policy Notes On An Age-Specific Epidemic, Franklin E. Zimring

Franklin E. Zimring

Part of a special section on youth violence and gun possession. The writer examines three dimensions of the juvenile firearms use epidemic of the period since 1985. He explores the factual foundation for concerns regarding increasing youth gun use, comparing recent trends with previous patterns and discussing some of the ways that present conditions are without precedent for students of firearms violence and of youth crime. In addition, he considers some of the data that are necessary for making intelligent choices when designing countermeasures to minors' misuse of guns and offers best guesses, given that most of the required data …

Punishment In Search Of A Crime: Standards For Capital Punishment In The Law Of Criminal Homicide, A, Franklin E. Zimring, Gordon Hawkins

Franklin E. Zimring

No abstract provided.

Youth Homicide In New York: A Preliminary Analysis, Franklin E. Zimring

Franklin E. Zimring

No abstract provided.

A Punishment In Search Of A Crime: Standards For Capital Punishment In The Law Of Criminal Homicide, Franklin E. Zimring, Gordon Hawkins

Franklin E. Zimring

No abstract provided.

Taking And Saving Lives, Eric Rakowski

Eric Rakowski

No abstract provided.

Drag Racing, Assumption Of Risk, And Homicide, Roni M. Rosenberg

Roni M Rosenberg

U.S. courts are divided with regard to the question of whether it is appropriate to convict a participant in a drag race of homicide for the death of another participant. The context is not one in which decedent is killed as a result of colliding with the defendant; rather the death is cause by a collision with a third party or a guard rail. The controversy revolves around on central question: whether there is a causal connection between defendant's participation in the race and the death of decedent. Courts that convict of manslaughter hold that such a causal connection exists, …

Consuming Obsessions: Housing, Homicide, And Mass Incarceration Since 1950, Jonathan Simon

Jonathan S Simon

No abstract provided.

Gay Panic And The Case For Gay Shield Laws, Kelly Strader, Molly Selvin, Lindsey Hay

Kelly Strader

In a highly publicized “gay panic” case, Brandon McInerney shot and killed Larry King in their middle school classroom. King was a self-identified gay student who sometimes wore jewelry and makeup to school and, according to those who knew him, was possibly transgender. Tried as an adult for first-degree murder, McInerney asserted a heat of passion defense based upon King’s alleged sexual advances. The jury deadlocked, with a majority accepting McInerney’s defense. Drawing largely upon qualitative empirical research, this article uses the Larry King murder case as a prism though which to view the doctrinal, theoretical, and policy bases of …

A Provocative Defense, Aya Gruber

Aya Gruber

It is common wisdom that the provocation defense is, quite simply, sexist. For decades, there has been a trenchant feminist critique that the doctrine reflects and reinforces masculine norms of violence and shelters brutal domestic killers. The critique is so prominent that it appears alongside the doctrine itself in leading criminal law casebooks. The feminist critique of provocation embodies several claims about provocation's problematically gendered nature, including that the defense is steeped in chauvinist history, treats culpable sexist killers too leniently, discriminates against women, and expresses bad messages. This article offers a (likely provocative) defense of the provocation doctrine. While …

Husband-Wife Homicide: An Essay From A Family Law Perspective, Margaret Howard

Margaret Howard

No abstract provided.

Beyond The George Zimmerman Trial: The Duty To Retreat And Those Who Contribute To Their Own Need To Use Deadly Self-Defense, Alon Lagstein

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Many critics have accused Florida's "Stand Your Ground" law of helping George Zimmerman get away with the murder of Trayvon Martin by allowing him to cause the very confrontation in which he ended Martin's life. This paper explores how American law treats defendants who have contributed to their own need to use deadly self-defense. This paper concludes that the duty to retreat, or lack thereof, is not the deciding factor in whether such defendants are allowed to claim self-defense.

Getting Away With Murder (Most Of The Time): A Sesquicentennial Analysis Of Civil War Era Homicide Cases In Boone County, Missouri, Frank O. Bowman Iii

Frank O. Bowman III

In the quarter century centered on the Civil War, 1850-1875, fifty-three homicide cases came before the courts of Boone County, Missouri, of which Columbia, home of the University of Missouri, is the county seat. To remarkable degree, the story of these killings, told in this article, is a chronicle of the place and period.

The article’s method might be described as “murder as social history.” Its narrative thread is an effort to explain the remarkable fact that only twelve of the fifty-three defendants charged with murder were ever convicted of any form of criminal homicide. The explanation requires an introduction …

Heller, Mcdonald And Murder: Testing The More Guns, More Murder Thesis, Don B. Kates, Carlisle E. Moody

Carlisle Moody

We examine several aspects of the more guns, more murder hypothesis. We find that ordinary people typically do not kill in a moment of rage, so that preventing them from owning guns will not save lives. Societies without guns are not typically peaceful and safe. Historically, more guns are associated with less murder. Modern Europe nations with very high gun ownership rates have much lower murder rates than low gun ownership nations. In the United States: the colonial period of universal gun ownership saw few murders and few of those were gun murders. More guns do not mean more murder.

In Self-Defense Regarding Self-Defense: A Rejoinder To Professor Corrado, Reid G. Fontaine

Reid G. Fontaine

This is a rejoinder to Professor Corrado in the upcoming special section of the American Criminal Law Review on the nature, structure, and function of self-defense and defense of others law.

An Attack On Self-Defense, Reid G. Fontaine

Reid G. Fontaine

Debate about the distinction between justification and excuse in criminal law theory has been lively during the last thirty years. Questions as to the nature and structure of various affirmative defenses continue to be raised, and the doctrine of self-defense has been at the center of much discussion. Three main articulations have been advanced: a purely objective theory, a purely subjective theory, and an objective/subjective hybrid. In the present Article, I support a hybrid model and propose a three-requirement framework that delineates the criteria that must be met to satisfy self-defense as a legitimate justification. Because this three-requirement framework raises …

The Wrongfulness Of Wrongly Interpreting Wrongfulness: Provocation Interpretational Bias And Heat Of Passion Homicide, Reid G. Fontaine

Reid G. Fontaine

In U.S. criminal law, a defendant charged with murder can invoke the heat of passion defense, an affirmative, partial-excuse defense so that he may be instead found guilty of the lesser crime of manslaughter. This defense requires the defendant to demonstrate that he was significantly provoked and, as a direct result of the provocation, became extremely emotionally disturbed and committed the killing while in this uncontrolled emotional state. In this way, the law makes a partial allowance for emotional dysfunction—the wrongfulness of the homicide is mitigated when the emotionally charged reactivity restricts the actor’s capacity for rational thought and reasoned …

The Art Of Malice, Bruce A. Antkowiak

Bruce A Antkowiak

Synopsis: The Art of Malice The Art of Malice seeks to synthesize history, poetry, psychology and the law of murder to expose a serious and fundamental error in the criminal justice system. This error occurs in the most serious kind of case (criminal homicide) and at the critical moment of that case when the jury looks to the judge to advise them on the law they must apply. At that moment, they are misled into believing that they may infer the wonderfully complex concept of malice from the mere fact that the killer used a deadly weapon to commit the …

The Art Of Malice, Bruce A. Antkowiak

Bruce A Antkowiak

The Art of Malice seeks to synthesize history, poetry, psychology and the law of murder to expose a serious and fundamental error in the criminal justice system. This error occurs in the most serious kind of case (criminal homicide) and at the critical moment of that case when the jury looks to the judge to advise them on the law they must apply. At that moment, they are misled into believing that they may infer the wonderfully complex concept of malice from the mere fact that the killer used a deadly weapon to commit the crime. This instruction betrays the …

California's Three Tiered Approach To Temper The Injustice Of The Unlawful Act Involuntary Manslaughter Rule, George L. Mertens

George L Mertens

This article addresses California’s “Unlawful Act Involuntary Manslaughter Rule” which is also referred to as the “misdemeanor manslaughter rule.” On its face, like the analogous felony-murder rule, this law can be applied in a brutally unjust manner. Indeed, this law is worse than the felony-murder rule in that the statute does not enumerate specific predicate acts. On its face, the law could apply to any violation of a misdemeanor or infraction which results in death. Judicially, the law had undergone significant limitations over time with the most significant coming in the last decade.

This article is timely and important for …