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The Common Law And The Constitution: John Locke And The Missing Link In Law, Steve Sheppard
The Common Law And The Constitution: John Locke And The Missing Link In Law, Steve Sheppard
Steve Sheppard
Locke's concept of rights influenced the Framers of the Constitution, which has increased the stakes in later interpretation of what Locke’s model of rights entailed. “Lockean rights” now suggests a perfect right unlimitable by the state in the public interest. Such a right is theoretically interesting, but it is not what Locke had in mind, and it was not the model of rights Madison, Jefferson, Hamilton, and other inherited from Locke's Second Treatise.
This paper was an initial reconstruction of Locke's model of a right, locating it within the legal culture of his time and place. His model of what …
The Metamorphoses Of Reasonable Doubt: How Changes In The Burden Of Proof Have Weakened The Presumption Of Innocence, Steve Sheppard
The Metamorphoses Of Reasonable Doubt: How Changes In The Burden Of Proof Have Weakened The Presumption Of Innocence, Steve Sheppard
Steve Sheppard
The standard of proof beyond a reasonable doubt is commonly thought to be an important benefit to the accused. The history of the standard is much more complex and demonstrates lesser commitments to the truth and to the defendant.
This article develops the history of the reasonable doubt instruction in the United States and its English antecedents. Examining the development of the instruction in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and its evolution through the nineteenth and twentieth, this history reveals the dual nature of the instruction. It both encapsulated a theory of knowledge and articulated a level of confidence in …