Law Commons^™

Patriarchy, Not Hierarchy: Rethinking The Effect Of Cultural Attitudes In Acquaintance Rape Cases, Eric R. Carpenter

Faculty Publications

Do certain people view acquaintance rape cases in ways that favor the man? The answer to that question is important. If certain people do, and those people form a disproportionately large percentage of the people in the institutions that process these cases, then those institutions may process these cases in ways that favor the man. In 2010, Dan Kahan published Culture, Cognition, and Consent, a study on how people evaluate a dorm room rape scenario. He found that those who endorsed a stratified, hierarchical social order were more likely to find that the man should not be found guilty of …

Evidence Of The Military's Sexual Assault Blind Spot, Eric R. Carpenter

Faculty Publications

In response to the American military's perceived inability to handle sexual assault cases, many members of Congress have lost confidence in those who run the military justice system. Critics say that those who run the military justice system are sexist and perceive sexual assault cases differently than the public does. This article is the first to empirically test that assertion. Further, this is the first study to focus on the military population that matters – those who actually run the military justice system. This study finds that this narrow military population endorses two constructs that are associated with the acceptance …

The Military's Sexual Assault Blind Spot, Eric R. Carpenter

Faculty Publications

The American military is in a well-publicized struggle to address its sexual assault problem. Critics say that those in the military who run the military justice system have a bias against the victims in these cases, where that bias is likely related to some form of sexism.

This article explores that problem and offers a social psychology explanation that supports the critics' position. This article explains the cognitive process that people use to solve these legal problems and then highlights a serious flaw in that process – the use of inaccurate rape schemas. This article focuses on two potential groups …

The Mens Rea Of The Crime Of Aggression, Noah Weisbord

Faculty Publications

This article, written in commemoration of the tenth anniversary of the International Criminal Court (ICC), explores the mens rea of the crime of aggression. The definition and jurisdictional conditions of the crime of aggression was recently incorporated into the ICC’s Rome Statute, thereby reviving a crime used during the Nuremberg trials to prosecute Nazi leaders after World War II. Mens rea is an important, even central, consideration when judging whether a defendant has satisfied all of the elements of the crime of aggression.

The starting point for this exploration of the mens rea of the crime of aggression is its …

Of Trayvon Martin, George Zimmerman, And Legal Expressivism: Why Massachusetts Should Stand Its Ground On "Stand Your Ground", Louis N. Schulze Jr.

Faculty Publications

This essay suggests that the expressive impact of Stand Your Ground laws alters the shared norms governing our collective understanding of the moral limits of “self-defense.” The essay argues that the theory of Legal Expressivism can explain the widespread misunderstanding of the limits of self-defense, as demonstrated by the institutional and popular reactions to the killing of Trayvon Martin by George Zimmerman. To support this thesis, the piece briefly explains Stand Your Ground statutes and legal expressivism. It then details the nature of the expressive function of these statutes and asserts that Massachusetts, which recently considered the adoption of such …