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Residential Protectionism And The Legal Mythology Of Home, Stephanie M. Stern May 2009

Residential Protectionism And The Legal Mythology Of Home, Stephanie M. Stern

Michigan Law Review

The theory that one's home is a psychologically special form of property has become a cherished principle of property law, cited by legislators and touted extensively in the legal scholarship. Influential scholars, most notably Margaret Radin, have asserted that ongoing control over one's home is necessary for an individual's very personhood and ability to flourish in society. Other commentators have expounded a communitarian vision of the home as rooting individuals in communities of close-knit social ties. Remarkably, the legal academy has accepted these theoretical accounts of the home without demanding a shred of empirical evidence. The misplaced belief in the …

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Deterrence Versus Brutalization: Capital Punishment's Differing Impacts Among States, Joanna M. Shepherd Nov 2005

Deterrence Versus Brutalization: Capital Punishment's Differing Impacts Among States, Joanna M. Shepherd

Michigan Law Review

Policymakers' false beliefs about capital punishment's universal deterrent effect may have caused many people to die needlessly. If deterrence is capital punishment's purpose then, in the majority of states where executions do not deter crime, executions kill convicts uselessly. Moreover, in the many states where the brutalization effect outweighs the deterrent effect, executions not only kill convicts needlessly but also induce the additional murders of many innocent people. After Part II discusses capital punishment's recent history in the United States, Part III reviews the conflict in recent studies on capital punishment and deterrence. Part IV explores differences in states' applications …

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On The Nature Of Norms: Biology, Morality, And The Disruption Of Order, Owen D. Jones May 2000

On The Nature Of Norms: Biology, Morality, And The Disruption Of Order, Owen D. Jones

Michigan Law Review

For a long time - and through the now-quaint division of disciplines - morals and norms have been set apart from other behaviorbiasing phenomena. They have also been set apart from each other. Morals are generally ceded in full to philosophers. Norms have been ceded to sociologists. In retrospect, it is not clear why this should be so. Reality is notoriously impervious to taxonomy, and the axis supposedly distinguishing morals from other norms is, after all, arbitrary. Moreover, behavior-biasing phenomena interact in important ways, making the study of parts - without more - just the study of parts. But one …

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A Capacity To Punish: The Ecology Of Crime And Punishment, Samuel M. Hill Apr 1986