Criminal Law Commons^™

Necrophilia: A New Social-Harm Taxonomy Of U.S. Laws, Kim D. Ricardo

William & Mary Journal of Race, Gender, and Social Justice

Despite five decades marked by progressive rape law reform...there has been little significant change in the rate of rape crimes. In fact, 2018 marked the sixth successive year in which the rate of rapes rose. In rape trials, prosecutors and defense attorneys struggle with the notion of consent. What does consent look like? That is, how do we know when sex happens with the participants’ mutual willingness, free from undue coercion?

It is against this backdrop that I began my research on necrophilia. Following Catharine MacKinnon’s criticism of the now-prevailing consent model of rape law, I began to wonder what …

Trauma And Memory In The Prosecution Of Sexual Assault, Cynthia V. Ward

Faculty Publications

Part I of this article traces the history of the recovered memory movement in the criminal prosecution of sexual assault, discussing some prominent cases and their consequences for wrongly convicted defendants. Part II asks why the criminal law was so vulnerable to claims of sexual assault, and other violent crimes, that were often wildly improbable on their face. The article concludes that the structure of recovered memory theory had the effect of disabling checks in the criminal process which are designed to prevent unjust convictions. Part III applies that conclusion to the theory of Trauma-informed Investigation (TII) and the "Neurobiology …