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Veterans; culpability; posttraumatic stress disorder; PTSD; mitigation; punishment; retribution; blame; military; just and unjust war; war crimes
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Military Veterans, Culpability, And Blame, Youngjae Lee
Military Veterans, Culpability, And Blame, Youngjae Lee
Faculty Scholarship
Recently in Porter v. McCollum, the United States Supreme Court, citing “a long tradition of according leniency to veterans in recognition of their service,” held that a defense lawyer’s failure to present his client’s military service record as mitigating evidence during his sentencing for two murders amounted to ineffective assistance of counsel. The purpose of this article is to assess, from the just deserts perspective, the grounds to believe that veterans who commit crimes are to be blamed less by the State than offenders without such backgrounds. Two rationales for a differential treatment of military veterans who commit crimes are …