Law Commons^™

Mens Rea In Comparative Perspective, Luis E. Chiesa

Journal Articles

This Essay compares and contrasts the American and civilian approaches to mens rea. The comparative analysis generates two important insights. First, it is preferable to have multiple forms of culpability than to have only two. Common law bipartite distinctions such as general and specific intent fail to fully make sense of our moral intuitions. The same goes for the civilian distinction between dolus (intent) and culpa (negligence). Second, attitudinal mental states should matter for criminalization and grading decisions. Nevertheless, adding attitudinal mental states to our already complicated mens rea framework may end up confusing juries instead of helping them. …

Reforming Restrictive Housing: The 2018 Asca-Liman Nationwide Survey Of Time-In-Cell, Judith Resnik, Anna Vancleave, Kristen Bell, Alexandra Harrington, Gregory Conyers, Catherine Mccarthy, Jenny Tumas, Annie Wang

Other Scholarship

Reforming Restrictive Housing: The 2018 ASCA-Liman Nationwide Survey of Time-in-Cell is the fourth in a series of research projects co-authored by the Association of State Correctional Administrators (ASCA) and the Arthur Liman Center at Yale Law School. These monographs provide a unique, longitudinal, nationwide database. The topic is “restrictive housing,” often termed “solitary confinement,” and defined as separating prisoners from the general population and holding them in cells for an average of 22 hours or more per day for 15 continuous days or more.

The 2018 monograph is based on survey responses from 43 prison systems that held 80.6% of …

The Model Penal Code, Mass Incarceration, And The Racialization Of American Criminal Law, Luis E. Chiesa

Journal Articles

No abstract provided.

Comparative Analysis As An Antidote To Tunnel Vision In Criminal Law Reform: The Example Of Complicity, Luis E. Chiesa

Journal Articles

In the context of criminal law reform, the tunnel vision that is produced by deeply embedded paradigms or patterns of criminality has the effect of stifling creativity. If left unchecked, the assumptions that serve as the backdrop to our criminal justice system will likely prevent reformers from giving serious consideration to alternatives that are in tension with the dominant patterns of criminality. I will end by arguing that one way of avoiding this outcome is by engaging in the comparative analysis of criminal law. Comparative analysis serves as a kind of “second opinion” that may help criminal law reformers to …

Unusual: The Death Penalty For Inadvertent Killing, Guyora Binder, Brenner Fissell, Robert Weisberg

Journal Articles

Can a burglar who frightens the occupant of a house, causing a fatal heart attack, be executed? More generally, does the Eighth Amendment permit capital punishment of one who causes death inadvertently? This scenario is possible in the significant minority of American jurisdictions that permit capital punishment for felony murder without requiring a mental state of intent to kill or reckless indifference to human life. Thus far, Eighth Amendment death penalty jurisprudence has required a culpable mental state of recklessness for execution of accomplices in a fatal felony, but has not yet addressed the culpability required for execution of the …

Parallel Enforcement And Agency Interdependence, Anthony O'Rourke

Journal Articles

Parallel civil and criminal enforcement dominates public enforcement of everything from securities regulation to immigration control. The scholarship, however, lacks any structural analysis of how parallel enforcement differs from other types of interagency coordination. Drawing on original interviews with prosecutors, regulators, and white-collar defense attorneys, this Article is the first to provide a realistic presentation of how parallel enforcement works in practice. It builds on this descriptive account to offer an explanatory theory of the pressures and incentives that shape parallel enforcement. The Article shows that, in parallel proceedings, criminal prosecutors lack the gatekeeping monopoly that traditionally defines their relationships …