Legal Theory Commons^™

Cruel And Unusual What? Toward A Unified Definition Of Punishment, Raff Donelson

Washington University Jurisprudence Review

This Article argues for an expanded understanding of legal punishment for American courts to use. Punishment, on this new view, includes all significant harm caused by state actors’ retributive intent and most significant harm that befalls someone as a result of the state seeking retribution against her. What commends this new definition is not that it tracks lexicographers’ or metaphysicians’ understandings of punishment; rather, this new definition aims to track relevant moral and political considerations. Importantly, the proposed definition results from an attempt to reason from the perspective of someone harmed by state practices, as that perspective has greater moral ...

Criminal Responsibility And Causal Determinism, J. G. Moore

Washington University Jurisprudence Review

In analytical jurisprudence, determinism has long been seen as a threat to free will, and free will has been considered necessary for criminal responsibility. Accordingly, Oliver Wendell Holmes held that if an offender were hereditarily or environmentally determined to offend, then her free will would be reduced, and her responsibility for criminal acts would be correspondingly diminished. In this respect, Holmes followed his father, Dr. Holmes, a physician and man of letters. Similar theories, such as neuropsychological theories of determinism, continue to influence views on criminal responsibility, although such theories do not imply that it is physically impossible for accused ...

Is It Fair To Criminalize Possession Of Firearms By Ex-Felons?, Zack Thompson

Washington University Jurisprudence Review

Steven Gomez was being held in the county jail when he learned that he had been acquitted of the charges against him. Upon hearing that Gomez would be released shortly, Imran Mir, a fellow inmate who had been charged with participating in an international drug conspiracy, offered Gomez $10,000 per person to kill the six witnesses who were going to testify against Mir. Gomez reported Mir’s offer to the jail guards. Eventually, the customs agent working on Mir’s case promised anonymity and protection to Gomez in return for his help in gathering evidence against Mir. Gomez then ...

Table Of Contents

Washington University Jurisprudence Review

No abstract provided.

Faculty List

Washington University Jurisprudence Review

No abstract provided.

Freedom, Legality, And The Rule Of Law, John A. Bruegger

Washington University Jurisprudence Review

There are numerous interactions between the rule of law and the concept of freedom. We can see this by looking at Fuller’s eight principles of legality, the positive and negative theories of liberty, coercive and empowering laws, and the formal and substantive rules of law. Adherence to the rules of formal legality promotes freedom by creating stability and predictability in the law, on which the people can then rely to plan their behaviors around the law—this is freedom under the law. Coercive laws can actually promote negative liberty by pulling people out of a Hobbesian state of nature ...

Go To Your Room, Fanduel And Draftkings: Daily Fantasy Sports, New York & Paternalism, James E. Havel

Washington University Jurisprudence Review

On October 4, 2015, Ethan Haskell, an employee of DraftKings, the nation’s second-largest Daily Fantasy Sports (DFS) website, won $350,000 in prize money on FanDuel, the nation’s largest DFS website. At the time, the two companies attracted attention with their seemingly incessant national advertising campaigns that blanketed the internet, television and sports-talk radio, which promised exciting entertainment and prize money resulting from playing daily fantasy leagues without season-long commitment. Haskell’s win was newsworthy, because he had access to pertinent and non-public DraftKings information that could have been used for his gain on FanDuel. This potential insider-trading ...

The Constitutionalization Of Indian Private Law, Shyamkrishna Balganesh

Faculty Scholarship

In this Essay, I examine the interaction between Indian constitutional law and Indian tort law. Using the context of the Indian Supreme Court’s dramatic expansion of its fundamental rights jurisprudence over the last three decades, I argue that while the Court’s conscious and systematic effort to transcend the public law/private law divide and incorporate concepts and mechanisms from the latter into the former might have produced a few immediate and highly salient benefits for the public law side of the system, its long terms effects on India’s private law edifice have been devastating. The Court’s ...

The Political Implications Of Felon Disenfranchisement Laws In The United States, Katharine G. Connaughton

CMC Senior Theses

This empirical study analyzes the political implications for presidential election outcomes that stem from varying felon disenfranchisement laws within the United States. In the past decade incarceration rates have drastically increased, consequently augmenting the disenfranchised population. This paper focuses on presidential election outcomes and state political party majorities in the election years 2000, 2004, 2008, and 2012. I use demographic characteristics to calibrate assumptions for voter turnout and political party choice among the disenfranchised populations within each state. I then apply these voting populations to historical election outcomes and find that three state political party outcomes change, as well as ...

"Safer" Harbor: The Impact Of Different Models Of Safe Harbor Laws On The Criminalization Of Commercially Sexually Exploited Children In The United States, Priscila Borges Marques Dos Santos

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

Commercially sexually exploited children (CSEC) are commonly treated as criminals and punished for offenses committed as a result of being trafficked. Recent state-level legislative efforts have sought to prevent minors from being held criminally liable for being commercially sexually exploited. This study offers an analysis of the effects of such laws on the criminalization of CSEC through the use of ordinary least squares (OLS) regression. Data on the number of child arrests for prostitution (1995-2014) and safe harbor laws were collected from the FBI Uniform Crime Reports, the Polaris Project website, and the 2015 ECPAT report. The findings of the ...

Modest Retributivism, Mitchell N. Berman

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Mailing Statement

Washington University Jurisprudence Review

No abstract provided.

Editorial Board

Washington University Jurisprudence Review

No abstract provided.

Repeating History: The Ineffectiveness Of The 1973 War Powers Resolution, Kaitlyn N. Schiess

Senior Honors Theses

Reluctant students often criticize the study of history as irrelevant to the present day.

In the case of one important and controversial piece of legislation, nothing could be farther from the truth. The 1973 War Powers Resolution (WPR), which places limits on presidential power to deploy troops in combat situations, has ample application to the political functioning of the United States today. Thus, investigating and studying the resolution remains relevant and important today. The WPR became law in 1973, overcoming a predictable veto by President Nixon. The legislation has consistently been a flashpoint for political controversy – eliciting criticism by both ...

The Unintended Consequences Of The International Women's Movement: Medicalizing Rape In The Democratic Republic Of Congo, Faye N. Forman

Senior Projects Spring 2016

The legal advancements made by western feminists from the 1960s continuing today mark a distinct shift for both the women's movement and mainstream radical feminist philosophy. This project examines the unintended consequences of the rise of the international women's movement as American feminists brought the law to bear as the primary instrument for reform to eradicate rape and violence against women. As contemporary political scholars demonstrate, legal remediation further codifies gender inequality and protective tropes that sexualize women's injury. Chapter 2 and 3 examines the intensified feminist efforts to criminalize domestic abuse at an international level, first ...

Hate Speech And Double Standards, Thomas M. Keck

Political Science

Many European states ban the public expression of hateful speech directed at racial and religious minorities, and an increasing number do so for anti-gay speech as well. These laws have been subjected to a wide range of legal, philosophical, and empirical investigation, but this paper explores one potential cost that has not received much attention in the literature. Statutory bans on hate speech leave democratic societies with a Hobson’s choice. If those societies ban incitements of hatred against some vulnerable groups, they will inevitably face parallel demands for protection of other such groups. If they accede to those demands ...

Restorative Justice From The Margins To The Center- The Emergence Of A New Norm In School Discipline.Pdf, Thalia Gonzalez

Thalia Gonzalez

White Faces In A Black Movement: Why Their Voices Matter, Chauncey L. Alcorn

Capstones

This story follows the lives of two white activists in New York's Black Lives Matter movement. It examines the largely ignored impact white activists have had on the BLM movement and also explores the history of white activists in the abolitionist and Civil Rights movements. The climax details a highly-publicized spat between rival Black Lives Matter organizations that happened during a Dec. 4 protest to commemorate the one-year anniversary of Officer Daniel Pantaleo's non-indictment in Garner's death. My main character, a white male, was blamed for causing the rift and was asked to step down from his ...

Institutional Consensus: A Comparative Analysis Of Rules Of Law In Lebanon And Somalia, Becca Ebert

Politics & Government Undergraduate Theses

Situated within broader contexts of literature on the origin of rule of law, this paper analyzes the rules of law in Lebanon and Somalia and offers commentary on the relationship between weak states and the rule of law. Both divided states that succumbed to brutal civil wars, Somalia was able to foster a strong rule of law whereas Lebanon was not. Rule of law, in this analysis, requires a common conception of justice and institutions that embody these values. Following Paul Kahn’s prescription for a cultural study of law, this paper analyzes the emergence of social consensus and institutional ...

Three Voices Of Socio-Legal Studies, Malcolm M. Feeley

Malcolm Feeley

No abstract provided.