Law Commons^™

Abolish Oral Argument?, Myron Moskovitz

Publications

No abstract provided.

Justice Carter’S Role In The Caryl Chessman Cases: Due Process Matters, Susan Rutberg

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No abstract provided.

Justice Carter’S Dissent In People V. Gonzales: Protecting Against The “Tyranny Of Totalitarianism”, Rachel A. Van Cleave

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People v. Gonzales involved an issue that continues to divide lawyers, judges, scholars, politicians, as well as the general public: how best to protect individuals from law enforcement conduct that violates constitutional protections? This question is particularly controversial in the context of a criminal case, since the exclusion of illegally obtained evidence often results in the alleged criminal going free. In Gonzales, the California Supreme Court was asked to adopt the exclusionary rule as a remedy for violations of constitutional rights. A majority of California Supreme Court justices answered this in the negative. Justice Carter disagreed, and his analysis provided …

Justice Carter’S Dissent In People V. Crooker: An Early Step Towards Miranda Warnings And The Expansion Of The Fifth Amendment To Pre-Trial Confessions, Helen Y. Chang

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By the middle of the 20th century, police interrogation of criminal suspects had developed into a fine art designed to extract confessions. The use of the “third degree,” otherwise known as the infliction of physical or mental suffering, was not uncommon. “[T]he most frequently utilized interrogation techniques have involved mental and psychological stratagems—trickery, deceit, deception, cajolery, subterfuge, chicanery, wheedling, false pretenses of sympathy, and various other artifices and ploys.” As the United States Supreme Court noted in its famous Miranda v. Arizona decision, this type of police interrogation involved “inherent compulsion,” was “inherently coercive,” “exact[ed] a heavy toll on individual …

The International War Crimes (Tribunal) Act, 1973 Of Bangladesh, Zakia Afrin

Publications

Bangladesh earned her independence from Pakistan in 1971 after a bloody war that continued for nine months. By December 16 of 1971, the day Bangladesh declared victory, an estimated 30 million people died and 200,000 women reported sexual violence by the Pakistani Army and their Bengali accomplices. Known as one of the worst genocide in history, the systematic killing of Bengalis included a chilling attempt to exterminate the intellectuals from within Bangladeshi society. A published report claims that by 19 April, 1975 individuals were arrested for war crimes and 752 were convicted. After the assassination of the country’s first Prime …

From Violence Against Women To Women's Violence In Haiti, Benedetta Faedi Duramy

Publications

Much of the current scholarship, as well as international policy studies focusing on civil conflicts and armed violence, has primarily construed women as victims and men as perpetrators of violence. Although this prevalent interpretation certainly reflects conventional wisdom and tells part of a true war story, the remainder, which has been very much less publicized and addressed, also perceives women as participants in violence and men occasionally as victims. This Article joins the chorus of scholars that have only recently begun to highlight the flaws of this common belief and conversely, describe female participation in conflict and armed violence, often …

Provoking Change: Comparative Insights On Feminist Homicide Law Reform, Carolyn B. Ramsey

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The provocation defense, which mitigates murder to manslaughter for killings perpetrated in the heat of passion, is one of the most controversial doctrines in the criminal law because of its perceived gender bias; yet most American scholars and lawmakers have not recommended that it be abolished. This Article analyzes trendsetting feminist homicide law reforms, including the abolition of the provocation defense in three Australian jurisdictions, places these reforms in historical context, and assesses their applicability to the United States. It ultimately advocates reintroducing the concept of justified emotion, grounded in modern equality principles and social values, as a requirement for …

The False Promise Of Retributive Proportionality, Aya Gruber

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No abstract provided.

A Distributive Theory Of Criminal Law, Aya Gruber

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In criminal law circles, the accepted wisdom is that there are two and only two true justifications of punishment-retributivism and utilitarianism. The multitude of moral claims about punishment may thus be reduced to two propositions: (1) punishment should be imposed because defendants deserve it, and (2) punishment should be imposed because it makes society safer. At the same time, most penal scholars notice the trend in criminal law to de-emphasize intent, centralize harm, and focus on victims, but they largely write off this trend as an irrational return to antiquated notions of vengeance. This Article asserts that there is in …

A Defensible Defense?: Reexamining Castle Doctrine Statutes, Benjamin Levin

Publications

Recent years have seen a proliferation of so-called “castle doctrine” statutes – laws that provide home dwellers with more expansive self-defense protections if they resort to lethal force in confrontations with intruders. The passage of such laws and subsequent uses of the defense have captured the public imagination, prompting significant media attention, as well as skeptical and critical scholarship from the legal academic community.

Considering the current prevalence of castle laws and the often polarized nature of the debate concerning their application, this Article argues that it is important to excavate the doctrine from the culture wars rhetoric in which …