Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Criminal Law Commons

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Articles 1 - 4 of 4

Full-Text Articles in Criminal Law

Judging Sexual Assault Trials: Systemic Failure In The Case Of Regina V Bassam Al-Rawi, Elaine Craig Jan 2017

Judging Sexual Assault Trials: Systemic Failure In The Case Of Regina V Bassam Al-Rawi, Elaine Craig

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

The recent decision to acquit a Halifax taxi driver of sexual assault in a case involving a very intoxicated woman, who was found by police in the accused’s vehicle unconscious and naked from the breasts down, rightly sparked public criticism and consternation. A review of the trial record in Al-Rawi, including the examination and cross-examination of witnesses, the closing submissions of the Crown and defence counsel, and the trial judge’s oral decision suggests a failure of our legal system to respond appropriately to allegations of sexual assault - a failure for which, the author argues, both the trial judge and …


Judging Sexual Assault Trials: Systemic Failure In The Case Of Regina V Bassam Al-Rawi, Elaine Craig Jan 2017

Judging Sexual Assault Trials: Systemic Failure In The Case Of Regina V Bassam Al-Rawi, Elaine Craig

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

The recent decision to acquit a Halifax taxi driver of sexual assault in a case involving a very intoxicated woman, who was found by police in the accused’s vehicle unconscious and naked from the breasts down, rightly sparked public criticism and consternation. A review of the trial record in Al-Rawi, including the examination and cross-examination of witnesses, the closing submissions of the Crown and defence counsel, and the trial judge’s oral decision suggests a failure of our legal system to respond appropriately to allegations of sexual assault - a failure for which, the author argues, both the trial judge and …


How To Think (Like A Lawyer) About Rape, Kimberly Kessler Ferzan, Peter K. Westen Jan 2017

How To Think (Like A Lawyer) About Rape, Kimberly Kessler Ferzan, Peter K. Westen

All Faculty Scholarship

From the American Law Institute to college campuses, there is a renewed interest in the law of rape. Law school faculty, however, may be reluctant to teach this deeply debated topic. This article begins from the premise that controversial and contested questions can be best resolved when participants understand the conceptual architecture that surrounds and delineates the normative questions. This allows participants to talk to one another instead of past each other. Accordingly, in this article, we begin by diffusing two non-debates: the apparent conflict created when we use “consent” to mean two different things and the question of whether …


Solving The Riddle Of Rape By Deception, Luis E. Chiesa Jan 2017

Solving The Riddle Of Rape By Deception, Luis E. Chiesa

Journal Articles

Is sex obtained by lies an act of lawful seduction or criminal rape? This deceptively simple question has baffled courts and scholars for more than a century. In an influential recent article, Yale Law Professor Jed Rubenfeld argued that our ambivalence towards this question generates what he called the “riddle of rape-by-deception”. The riddle is that if rape is defined as having sex without consent, then rape statutes should prohibit sex by deception just as much as they prohibit sex by force. Yet they don’t. So either rape statutes are guilty of a huge, inexplicable oversight or rape law is …