Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
Articles 1 - 3 of 3
Full-Text Articles in Jurisprudence
The Criminal-Civil Distinction And The Utility Of Desert, Paul H. Robinson
The Criminal-Civil Distinction And The Utility Of Desert, Paul H. Robinson
All Faculty Scholarship
The communist Chinese have distinct criminal and civil systems, as do the democratic Swiss, and the monarchist Saudis.1 The criminal-civil distinction also is a basic organizing device for Islamic Pakistan, Catholic Ireland, Hindu India, and the atheistic former Soviet Union, industrialized Germany, rural Papua New Guinea, the tribal Bedouins, wealthy Singapore, impoverished Somalia, developing Thailand, newly organized Ukraine, and the ancient Romans. Apparently every society sufficiently developed to have a formal legal system usesthe criminal-civil distinction as an organizing principle. Why? Why has every society felt it necessary to create a system to impose criminal liability distinct from civil liability?
Causing The Conditions Of One's Own Defense: A Study In The Limits Of Theory In Criminal Law Doctrine, Paul H. Robinson
Causing The Conditions Of One's Own Defense: A Study In The Limits Of Theory In Criminal Law Doctrine, Paul H. Robinson
All Faculty Scholarship
One widely-stated goal of criminal law theory is to create the set of rules that best implements our collective sense of justice. To reach this goal, the theorist continuously adjusts his theory so that it generates rules that better reflect our fundamental notions of justice. These rules, moreover, must function as workable doctrine, which in the context of criminal law means precise statutory provisions. It is this process of theoretical refinement and translation that is the topic of this article. Can good theory generate results that approximate our collective sense of justice? Can the theoretical refinements be translated into workable …
Criminal Liability For Omissions: A Brief Summary And Critique Of The Law In The United States, Paul H. Robinson
Criminal Liability For Omissions: A Brief Summary And Critique Of The Law In The United States, Paul H. Robinson
All Faculty Scholarship
Criminal liability for an omission is imposed in two distinct situations. First, such liability is often imposed explicitly in offense definitions that punish a failure to perform certain conduct. For example, it is an offense to fail to file a tax return. Second, it is also common for a general provision, apart from an offense definition, to create omission liability for an offense defined in commission terms. Parents, for example, are generally given the legal duty to care for their children. A parent may be held liable for criminal homicide, then, where death results from a failure to perform this …