Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
Articles 1 - 6 of 6
Full-Text Articles in Law
Punishment Without Conviction: Controlling The Use Of Unconvicted Conduct In Federal Sentencing, Gerald F. Leonard, Christine Dieter
Punishment Without Conviction: Controlling The Use Of Unconvicted Conduct In Federal Sentencing, Gerald F. Leonard, Christine Dieter
Faculty Scholarship
Federal sentencing law is widely applied to punish offenders not only for the offenses of which they have been convicted, but also, in the same proceeding, for offenses of which they have not been convicted. Unlike many scholars, we accept that federal courts can, in the right circumstances, legitimately enhance sentences for facts and conduct found at sentencing, even when those facts and conduct constitute uncharged offenses or even charges on which the defendant actually won an acquittal. But we argue that in identifiable cases, the use of such sentencing facts does cross the line from appropriate contextualization of the …
Ignorance And Mistake Of Criminal Law, Noncriminal Law, And Fact, Kenneth Simons
Ignorance And Mistake Of Criminal Law, Noncriminal Law, And Fact, Kenneth Simons
Faculty Scholarship
After clarifying the distinction between mistakes of fact and mistakes of law, this article explores in detail an important distinction within the category of mistake of law, between mistake about the criminal law itself and mistake about noncriminal law norms that the criminal law makes relevant - for example, about the civil law of property (in a theft prosecution) or of divorce (in a bigamy prosecution). The Model Penal Code seems to endorse the view that mistakes about noncriminal law norms should presumptively be treated as exculpatory in the same way as analogous mistakes about facts. Case law on the …
Persuasive Visions: Film And Memory, Jessica Silbey
Persuasive Visions: Film And Memory, Jessica Silbey
Faculty Scholarship
This commentary takes a new look at law and film studies through the lens of film as memory. Instead of describing film as evidence and foreordaining its role in truth-seeking processes, it thinks instead of film as individual, institutional and cultural memory, placing it squarely within the realm of contestability. Paralleling film genres, the commentary imagines four forms of memory that film could embody: memorabilia (cinéma vérité), memoirs (autobiographical and biographical film), ceremonial memorials (narrative film monuments of a life, person or institution), and mythic memory (dramatic fictional film). Imagining film as memory resituates film’s role in law (procedural, substantive …
Pain As Fact And Heuristic: How Pain Neuroimaging Illuminates Moral Dimensions Of Law, Amanda C. Pustilnik
Pain As Fact And Heuristic: How Pain Neuroimaging Illuminates Moral Dimensions Of Law, Amanda C. Pustilnik
Faculty Scholarship
Legal statuses, prohibitions, and protections often turn on the presence and degree of physical pain. In legal domains ranging from tort to torture, pain and its degree do important definitional work by delimiting boundaries of lawfulness and of entitlements. The omnipresence of pain in law suggests that the law embodies an intuition about the ontological primacy of pain. Yet, for all the work done by pain as a term in legal texts and practice, it has had a confounding lack of external verifiability. As with other subjective states, we have been able to impute pain’s presence but have not been …
Overcriminalization For Lack Of Better Options: A Celebration Of Bill Stuntz, Daniel C. Richman
Overcriminalization For Lack Of Better Options: A Celebration Of Bill Stuntz, Daniel C. Richman
Faculty Scholarship
The unity of Bill Stuntz's character – his profound integrity – makes it easy to move from a celebration of his friendship (which I’ve treasured since we first met back in 1985) to one of his scholarship, for creativity, wisdom, and humility are strengths not just of Bill himself but of his work. Even as his broad brush strokes have fundamentally advanced our understanding of the interplay between substantive criminal law, criminal procedure, and criminal justice institutions over time, Bill's work – like Bill himself – welcomes and endures sustained engagement. Humility is appropriate for me, too, as I offer …
Some Notes On Property Rules, Liability Rules, And Criminal Law, Keith N. Hylton
Some Notes On Property Rules, Liability Rules, And Criminal Law, Keith N. Hylton
Faculty Scholarship
The property-liability rules framework, which offers a robust positive theory of criminal law, has come under attack in recent years. One critique, which I label the Indifference Proposition, argues that property rules and liability rules are equivalent in low transaction cost settings. In this paper I examine the conditions under which the Indifference Proposition is valid. In several plausible low transaction-cost settings the proposition is not valid.