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Full-Text Articles in Law

Reckless Juveniles, Kimberly Thomas Feb 2019

Reckless Juveniles, Kimberly Thomas

Articles

Modern doctrine and scholarship largely take it for granted that offenders should be criminally punished for reckless acts.1 Yet, developments in our understanding of human behavior can shed light on how we define and attribute criminal liability, or at least force us to grapple with the categories that have existed for so long. This Article examines recklessness and related doctrines in light of the shifts in understanding of adolescent behavior and its biological roots, to see what insights we might attain, or what challenges these understandings pose to this foundational mens rea doctrine. Over the past decade, the U.S. Supreme …


Why And How To Compensate Exonerees, Erik Encarnacion Jan 2016

Why And How To Compensate Exonerees, Erik Encarnacion

Michigan Law Review First Impressions

How can we bring greater uniformity to exoneree compensation in a principled and just way? This paper argues that answering this question becomes easier once we identify the principles of justice that best justify and explain compensation statutes. In particular, commentators have assumed incorrectly that the goal of compensating exonerees should be understood primarily in terms of corrective justice, which posits a duty to undo or repair wrongfully inflicted harms. This paper argues, by contrast, that restitutionary justice, which forces parties to relinquish unjust gains, better justifies and explains compensation statutes. The unjust gains at issue are fair wages withheld …


Mens Rea, Criminal Responsibility, And The Death Of Freddie Gray, Michael Serota Oct 2015

Mens Rea, Criminal Responsibility, And The Death Of Freddie Gray, Michael Serota

Michigan Law Review First Impressions

Who (if anyone) is criminally responsible for the death of Freddie Gray, the 25-year-old African-American man who died from injuries suffered while in the custody of Baltimore police? This question has been at the forefront of the extensive coverage of Gray’s death, which has inspired a national discussion about law enforcement’s relationship with black communities. But it is also a question that may never be fairly resolved for reasons wholly unrelated to the topic of community policing, with which Gray’s death has become synonymous. What may ultimately hamper the administration of justice in the prosecution of the police officers involved …


After The Spill Is Gone: The Gulf Of Mexico, Environmental Crime, And Criminal Law, David M. Uhlmann Jan 2011

After The Spill Is Gone: The Gulf Of Mexico, Environmental Crime, And Criminal Law, David M. Uhlmann

Articles

The Gulf oil spill was the worst environmental disaster in U.S. history, and will be the most significant criminal case ever prosecuted under U.S. environmental laws. The Justice Department is likely to prosecute BP, Transocean, and Halliburton for criminal violations of the Clean Water Act and the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, which will result in the largest fines ever imposed in the United States for any form of corporate crime. The Justice Department also may decide to pursue charges for manslaughter, false statements, and obstruction of justice. The prosecution will shape public perceptions about environmental crime, for reasons that are …


Crimes On The Gulf, David M. Uhlmann Jan 2010

Crimes On The Gulf, David M. Uhlmann

Articles

The explosion that rocked the Deepwater Horizon oil rig on April 20, 2010, killed 11 workers and triggered the worst environmental disaster in U.S. history. After six weeks of failed efforts to stop the gushing oil and protect the fragile ecosystem of the Gulf of Mexico and the communities along its shores, President Obama pledged on June 1 that “if our laws were broken . . . we will bring those responsible to justice.”


Environmental Crime Comes Of Age: The Evolution Of Criminal Enforcement In The Environmental Regulatory Scheme, David M. Uhlmann Jan 2009

Environmental Crime Comes Of Age: The Evolution Of Criminal Enforcement In The Environmental Regulatory Scheme, David M. Uhlmann

Articles

The Rivers and Harbors Act of 1899 often is considered the first environmental criminal statute because it contains strict liability provisions that make it a misdemeanor to discharge refuse into navigable waters of the United States without a permit. When Congress passed the Rivers and Harbors Act, however, it was far more concerned with preventing interference with interstate commerce than environmental protection. For practical purposes, the environmental crimes program in the United States dates to the development of the modem environmental regulatory system during the 1970s, and amendments to the environmental laws during the 1980s, which upgraded criminal violations of …


Conjunction And Aggregation, Saul Levmore Feb 2001

Conjunction And Aggregation, Saul Levmore

Michigan Law Review

This Article begins with the puzzle of why the law avoids the issue of conjunctive probability. Mathematically inclined observers might, for example, employ the "product rule," multiplying the probabilities associated with several events or requirements in order to assess a combined likelihood, but judges and lawyers seem otherwise inclined. Courts and statutes might be explicit about the manner in which multiple requirements should be combined, but they are not. Thus, it is often unclear whether a factfinder should assess if condition A was more likely than not to be present - and then go on to see whether condition B …


Negligence - Res Ipsa Loquitur - Application To Multiple Defendants In The Alternative, Edward H. Hoenicke Mar 1955

Negligence - Res Ipsa Loquitur - Application To Multiple Defendants In The Alternative, Edward H. Hoenicke

Michigan Law Review

Appellant, a minor, was injured by the explosion of an "aerial bomb" which he found on a county fair ground. Two of the defendants admitted having brought aerial bombs to the fair but each entered evidence which if believed would show that he had not left the article which injured the appellant. These two defendants were completely independent of each other and it was admitted that both could not be responsible for the injury to the child. The lower court instructed the jury that if they could not determine which of the two defendants was actionably negligent, they were compelled …


Negligence - Duties Of Railroad - Landowner Toward Frequent Trespasser - Limitations On Rights Of Trespasser, William D. Keeler S.Ed. Nov 1954

Negligence - Duties Of Railroad - Landowner Toward Frequent Trespasser - Limitations On Rights Of Trespasser, William D. Keeler S.Ed.

Michigan Law Review

The duties of a landowner toward one who enters the land without consent may no longer be determined, in many cases, by merely stating the fact that the intruder is a trespasser whose presence is unknown to the landowner. This comment will discuss an area in which the relationship of landowner and trespasser inter se has been greatly altered, and will deal in particular with a class of cases which serve to limit the expanded rights of the trespasser.


Torts - Infant's Liability For Battery - Parent's Liability For Child's, Richard S. Weinstein Jan 1954

Torts - Infant's Liability For Battery - Parent's Liability For Child's, Richard S. Weinstein

Michigan Law Review

Plaintiff, a baby sitter, suffered injuries when she was pushed violently to the floor by her four-year-old charge. Plaintiff brought an action against the child alleging battery and negligence, and against the parents alleging negligence in failing to warn plaintiff of the boy's habit of violently attacking people. The lower court sustained demurrers to all three counts. On appeal, held, reversed on the first and third counts. An infant may be charged with battery, and a parent may be negligent in failing to warn of an infant's violent tendencies. Ellis v. D'Angelo, 116 Cal. App. (2d) 310, 253 …


Abstracts, Katherine Kempfer Feb 1943

Abstracts, Katherine Kempfer

Michigan Law Review

The abstracts consist merely of summaries of the facts and holdings of recent cases and are distinguished from the notes by the absence of discussion.


Criminal Law And Procedure-Jury Trial- Directed Verdict Of Guilty- Michigan Rule, Michigan Law Review May 1941

Criminal Law And Procedure-Jury Trial- Directed Verdict Of Guilty- Michigan Rule, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

The defendant was convicted of negligent homicide as the result of a collision between his car and another, in which an occupant of the other car was killed. The trial court charged the jury, inter alia, "The court submits the case to you for your determination. The view of the court is that under the law there is only one verdict that can be found by the jury under the evidence in this case in its most favorable light." This was objected to by the defendant as error. Held, the instruction was in effect a direction of a verdict …


Recent Important Decisions, Michigan Law Review Jun 1922

Recent Important Decisions, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

No abstract provided.


Recent Important Decisions, Michigan Law Review May 1922

Recent Important Decisions, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

Assignments- Assignment of an Expectancy - Joseph and James were two of six children. A contract witnessed "that Joseph Snyder has sold to James Snyder one undivided sixth of the real estate owned by the mother, Susan Snyder; to secure said interest to James after her death, the mother unites in the conveyance of said interest The said Joseph warrants and defends the interest from all claims." The contract was signed by Joseph and by the mother. Held, Joseph had no estate which he could convey, and the contract, though made with the consent of the mother, was unenforceable either …


Recent Important Decisions, Michigan Law Review Mar 1922

Recent Important Decisions, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

Carriers of Passengers - Duty to Stop at Station to Permit Passenger to Alight-Contributory Negligence of Passenger Plaintiff's intestate was riding in the front end of a crowded vestibule car in the coach next to the tender of the eengine. When the train stopped at his station he tried to leave by the front end, but found the door from the vestibule closed. As he did not know how to open it, or was unwilling to be carried by his station, he stepped from his platform to the bumper of the tender and tried to follow it to the side …