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Full-Text Articles in Law
Criminal Acts And Basic Moral Equality, John A. Humbach
Criminal Acts And Basic Moral Equality, John A. Humbach
Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications
Modern criminal justice presupposes that persons are not morally equal. On the contrary, those who do wrong are viewed by the law as less worthy of respect, concern and decent treatment: Offenders, it is said, “deserve” to suffer for their misdeeds. Yet, there is scant logical or empirical basis for the law's supposition that offenders are morally inferior. The usual reasoning is that persons who intentionally or knowingly do wrong are the authors and initiators of their acts and, as such, are morally responsible for them. But this reasoning rests on the assumption that a person's mental states, such as …
The Prosecutor In The Mirror: Conviction Integrity Units And Brady Claims, Lissa Griffin, Daisy Mason
The Prosecutor In The Mirror: Conviction Integrity Units And Brady Claims, Lissa Griffin, Daisy Mason
Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications
In Brady v. Maryland, the Supreme Court held that a prosecutor has a due process obligation to disclose exculpatory evidence that is material to guilt or punishment. The failure to fulfill this duty is particularly insidious because it bears directly on both whether an innocent defendant may have been convicted as well as on whether the adjudicatory process was fair. The failure to disclose exculpatory evidence has been characterized as “epidemic” and has been documented to have made a major, outsized contribution in cases that resulted in exonerations. It is not surprising, then, that conviction integrity units in prosecutor’s offices …