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Full-Text Articles in Legal History
R' Blake Brown, A Trying Question: The Jury In Nineteenth-Century Canada, Mary Stokes
R' Blake Brown, A Trying Question: The Jury In Nineteenth-Century Canada, Mary Stokes
Dalhousie Law Journal
In a 1984 review essay on the inter-relationship(s) oflaw and society in English criminal law historiography, Doug Hay observed that "in history, there is no 'background,"" His point was that there are an infinite number ofbackgrounds, all of which are moving and changing, often in non-linear fashion, at different paces, either in counter-point or direct dialogue with the foreground which is the immediate subject ofexposition. Legal historians who put their topics "in context" by treating the background as static are now fortunately few, at least when this background is conceived of as social or economic. But as Hay observed, the …
Revisiting Beccaria's Vision: The Enlightenment, America's Death Penalty, And The Abolition Movement, John D. Bessler
Revisiting Beccaria's Vision: The Enlightenment, America's Death Penalty, And The Abolition Movement, John D. Bessler
Northwestern Journal of Law & Social Policy
In 1764, Cesare Beccaria, a 26-year-old Italian, penned . The treatise argued that state-sanctioned executions and torture violate natural law. As we near the 250th anniversary of its publication, author John D. Bessler provides a comprehensive review of the abolition movement, from before Beccaria's time to the present. Bessler reviews Beccaria's influence on Enlightenment thinkers and more importantly, on America's Founding Fathers. The Article also provides an extensive review of Eighth Amendment jurisprudence and then contrasts it with the trend in International Law towards the abolition of the death penalty. It then discusses the current state of the death penalty …