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Full-Text Articles in Criminal Law
Less Than We Might: Meditations On Life In Prison Without Parole, Robert Blecker
Less Than We Might: Meditations On Life In Prison Without Parole, Robert Blecker
Articles & Chapters
Today, death penalty opponents mostly claim life without parole (LWOP) as their genuinely popular substitute punishment for the worst of the worst. These abolitionists embrace LWOP as cheaper, equally just, and equally effective - a punishment that eliminates the state’s exercise of an inhumane power to kill helpless human beings who pose no immediate threat. Furthermore, they insist, LWOP allows the criminal justice system to reverse sentencing mistakes. Some even characterize it as a punishment worse than death.
Thousands of hours in several states, interviewing and observing more than a hundred convicted killers, along with dozens of correctional officers who …
Exceptions: The Criminal Law's Illogical Approach To Hiv-Related Aggravated Assaults, Ari Ezra Waldman
Exceptions: The Criminal Law's Illogical Approach To Hiv-Related Aggravated Assaults, Ari Ezra Waldman
Articles & Chapters
This Article identifies logical and due process errors in HIV-related aggravated assault cases, which usually involve an HIV-positive individual having unprotected sex without disclosing his or her HIV status. While this behavior should not be encouraged, this Article suggests that punishing this conduct through a charge of aggravated assault - which requires a showing that the defendant’s actions were a means likely to cause grievous bodily harm or death - is fraught with fallacies in reasoning and runs afoul of due process. Specifically, some courts use the "rule of thumb" that HIV can possibly be transmitted through bodily fluids as …