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Full-Text Articles in Law
Reckless Juveniles, Kimberly Thomas
Reckless Juveniles, Kimberly Thomas
Articles
Modern doctrine and scholarship largely take it for granted that offenders should be criminally punished for reckless acts.1 Yet, developments in our understanding of human behavior can shed light on how we define and attribute criminal liability, or at least force us to grapple with the categories that have existed for so long. This Article examines recklessness and related doctrines in light of the shifts in understanding of adolescent behavior and its biological roots, to see what insights we might attain, or what challenges these understandings pose to this foundational mens rea doctrine. Over the past decade, the U.S. Supreme …
Interpersonal Power In The Criminal System, Kimberly A. Thomas
Interpersonal Power In The Criminal System, Kimberly A. Thomas
Articles
This Article identifies the workings of interpersonal power in the criminal system and considers the effect of these cases on criminal theory and practice. By uncovering this phenomenon, this Article hopes to spark a legal academic dialogue and inquiry that has, until now, been unspoken. This Article has roots in my former work as a Philadelphia public defender and in my current work as a clinical professor with students who appear in criminal and juvenile court. As an advocate for the poor in a busy courthouse, one of a lawyer's tasks is to discover the multiple "real" stories behind the …
What Does Tort Law Do? What Can It Do?, Scott Hershovitz
What Does Tort Law Do? What Can It Do?, Scott Hershovitz
Articles
It’s not hard to describe what tort law does. As a first approximation, we might say that tort empowers those who suffer certain sorts of injuries or invasions to seek remedies from those who brought about those injuries or invasions. The challenge is to explain why tort does that, or to explain what tort is trying to do when it does that. After all, it is not obvious that we should have an institution specially concerned with the injuries and invasions that count as torts.
Suicide And The Failure Of Modern Moral Theory, Donald H. Regan
Suicide And The Failure Of Modern Moral Theory, Donald H. Regan
Articles
The question I want to address is when and why suicide is morally wrong. There is something peculiar in my writing on this question at all. It will soon become apparent that although I think suicide involves genuine moral issues. I also think that the moral problem of suicide is a problem which most people answer correctly. That is, I think that in the vast majority of cases where people ought not to commit suicide, they do not. They are not even tempted. Conversely, most people who do commit suicide, or who want to, are either justified or at least …
The Problem Of Social Cost Revisited, Donald H. Regan
The Problem Of Social Cost Revisited, Donald H. Regan
Articles
SOME years ago, in a paper entitled "The Problem of Social Cost," Professor Ronald Coase asserted and argued for a proposition which has since acquired the convenient sobriquet "the Coase Theorem." The proposition is: That in a world of perfect competition, perfect information, and zero transaction costs, the allocation of resources in the economy will be efficient and will be unaffected by legal rules regarding the initial impact of costs resulting from externalities. Note that there are two claims being made, which it is well to separate for purposes of discussion. The first claim is that, under the conditions described, …