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Full-Text Articles in Criminology
Between Structure And Agency: Assassination, Social Forces, And The Production Of The Criminal Subject, Cary H. Federman
Between Structure And Agency: Assassination, Social Forces, And The Production Of The Criminal Subject, Cary H. Federman
Department of Justice Studies Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works
Assassins are often regarded as ahistorical figures of evil. In this article, I contest this view by analyzing the assassination of President William McKinley by Leon Czolgosz in 1901. There are two purposes to this article. The first is to situate McKinley’s assassination within the history and development of the social sciences, principally sociology, rather than assume that the assassin is a trans-historical representation of willful irresponsibility. The second is to describe and critique the discourse that made Czolgosz into a rational agent once he entered history as an assassin.
Provocation As Partial Justification And Partial Excuse, Mitchell N. Berman
Provocation As Partial Justification And Partial Excuse, Mitchell N. Berman
All Faculty Scholarship
The partial defense of provocation provides that a person who kills in the heat of passion brought on by legally adequate provocation is guilty of manslaughter rather than murder. It traces back to the twelfth century, and exists today, in some form, in almost every U.S. state and other common law jurisdictions. But long history and wide application have not produced agreement on the rationale for the doctrine. To the contrary, the search for a coherent and satisfying rationale remains among the main occupations of criminal law theorists. The dominant scholarly view holds that provocation is best explained and defended …