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Full-Text Articles in Law
How (Not) To Think Like A Punisher, Alice G. Ristroph
How (Not) To Think Like A Punisher, Alice G. Ristroph
Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works
This article examines the several and sometimes contradictory accounts of sentencing in proposed revisions to the Model Penal Code. At times, sentencing appears to be an art, dependent upon practical wisdom; in other instances, sentencing seems more of a science, dependent upon close analysis of empirical data. I argue that the new Code provisions are at their best when they acknowledge the legal and political complexities of sentencing, and at their worst when they invoke the rhetoric of desert. When the Code focuses on the sentencing process in political context, it offers opportunities to deploy both practical wisdom and empirical …
Revisiting Beccaria's Vision: The Enlightenment, America's Death Penalty, And The Abolition Movement, John Bessler
Revisiting Beccaria's Vision: The Enlightenment, America's Death Penalty, And The Abolition Movement, John Bessler
All Faculty Scholarship
In 1764, Cesare Beccaria, a 26-year-old Italian criminologist, penned On Crimes and Punishments. That treatise spoke out against torture and made the first comprehensive argument against state-sanctioned executions. As we near the 250th anniversary of its publication, law professor John Bessler provides a comprehensive review of the abolition movement from before Beccaria's time to the present. Bessler reviews Beccaria's substantial influence on Enlightenment thinkers and on America's Founding Fathers in particular. The Article also provides an extensive review of Eighth Amendment jurisprudence and then contrasts it with the trend in international law towards the death penalty's abolition. It then discusses …