Law Commons^™

Exploring The Relationship Between Drug And Alcohol Treatment Facilities And Violent And Property Crime: A Socioeconomic Contingent Relationship, Christopher Salvatore, Travis A. Taniguchi

Christopher Salvatore

Siting of drug and alcohol treatment facilities is often met with negative reactions because of the assumption that these facilities increase crime by attracting drug users (and possibly dealers) to an area. This assumption, however, rests on weak empirical footings that have not been subjected to strong empirical analyses. Using census block groups from Philadelphia, PA, it was found that the criminogenic impact of treatment facilities in and near a neighborhood on its violent and property crime rates may be contingent on the socioeconomic status (SES) of the neighborhood. Paying attention to both the density and proximity of facilities in …

Is Emerging Adulthood Influencing Moffitt’S Developmental Taxonomy? Adding The “Prolonged” Adolescent Offender, Christopher Salvatore, Travis A. Taniguchi, Wayne Welsh

Christopher Salvatore

The study of offender trajectories has been a prolific area of criminological research. However, few studies have incorporated the influence of emerging adulthood, a recently identified stage of the life course, on offending trajectories. The present study addressed this shortcoming by introducing the "prolonged adolescent" offender, a low-level offender between the ages of 18 and 25 that has failed to successfully transition into adult social roles. A theoretical background based on prior research in life-course criminology and emerging adulthood is presented. Using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health analyses examined the relationship between indicators of traditional turning …

Where Concerned Citizens Perceive Police As More Responsive To Troublesome Teen Groups: Theoretical Implications For Political Economy, Incivilities And Policing, Christopher Salvatore, Ralph B. Taylor, Christopher Kelly

Christopher Salvatore

The current investigation extends previous work on citizens' perceptions of police performance. It examines the origins of between-community differences in concerned citizens' judgments that police are responding sufficiently to a local social problem. The problem is local unsupervised teen groups, a key indicator for both the revised systemic social disorganization perspective and the incivilities thesis. Four theoretical perspectives predict ecological determinants of these shared judgments. Less perceived police responsiveness is anticipated in lower socioeconomic status (SES) police districts by both a political economy and a stratified incivilities perspective; more predominantly minority police districts by a racialized justice perspective; and in …

On Hart's Category Mistake, Michael S. Green

Michael S. Green

This essay concerns Scott Shapiro’s criticism that H.L.A. Hart’s theory of law suffers from a “category mistake.” Although other philosophers of law have summarily dismissed Shapiro’s criticism, I argue that it identifies an important requirement for an adequate theory of law. Such a theory must explain why legal officials justify their actions by reference to abstract propositional entities, instead of pointing to the existence of social practices. A virtue of Shapiro’s planning theory of law is that it can explain this phenomenon. Despite these sympathies, however, I end with the suggestion that Shapiro’s criticism of Hart, as it stands, is …

Pagans, Christians, And Student Protesters, Stanley Fish

Stanley Fish

Stanley Fish’s contribution to the 2019 Editors’ Symposium: Pagans and Christians in the City.

Mens Rea In Comparative Perspective, Luis E. Chiesa

Luis Chiesa

This Essay compares and contrasts the American and civilian approaches to mens rea. The comparative analysis generates two important insights. First, it is preferable to have multiple forms of culpability than to have only two. Common law bipartite distinctions such as general and specific intent fail to fully make sense of our moral intuitions. The same goes for the civilian distinction between dolus (intent) and culpa (negligence). Second, attitudinal mental states should matter for criminalization and grading decisions. Nevertheless, adding attitudinal mental states to our already complicated mens rea framework may end up confusing juries instead of helping them. …

Theorizing American Freedom (Review Essay), Anthony O'Rourke

Anthony O'Rourke

This is a review essay of The Two Faces of American Freedom, by Aziz Rana. The book presents a new and provocative account of the relationship between ideas of freedom and the constitutional structure of American power. Through the nineteenth century, Rana argues, America’s constitutional structure was shaped by a racially exclusionary, yet economically robust, concept that he calls “settler freedom.” Drawing on the burgeoning interdisciplinary field of settler colonial studies, as well as on the vast historical literature on civic republicanism, Rana contends that the concept of settler freedom necessitated a constitutional framework that enabled rapid territorial expansion and …

The Political Economy Of Criminal Procedure Litigation, Anthony O'Rourke

Anthony O'Rourke

Criminal procedure has undergone several well-documented shifts in its doctrinal foundations since the Supreme Court first began to apply the Constitution’s criminal procedure protections to the States. This Article examines the ways in which the political economy of criminal litigation – specifically, the material conditions that determine which litigants are able to raise criminal procedure claims, and which of those litigants’ cases are appealed to the United States Supreme Court – has influenced these shifts. It offers a theoretical framework for understanding how the political economy of criminal litigation shapes constitutional doctrine, according to which an increase in the number …

Structural Overdelegation In Criminal Procedure, Anthony O'Rourke

Anthony O'Rourke

In function, if not in form, criminal procedure is a type of delegation. It requires courts to select constitutional objectives, and to decide how much discretionary authority to allocate to law enforcement officials in order to implement those objectives. By recognizing this process for what it is, this Article identifies a previously unseen phenomenon that inheres in the structure of criminal procedure decision-making. Criminal procedure’s decision-making structure, this Article argues, pressures the Supreme Court to delegate more discretionary authority to law enforcement officials than the Court’s constitutional objectives can justify. By definition, this systematic “overdelegation” does not result from the …

Competitive Supragovernmental Regulation: How Could It Be Democratic?, Errol E. Meidinger

Errol Meidinger

This paper explores the possibility that a developing form of regulatory governance is also sketching out a new form of anticipatory regulatory democracy. 'Competitive supra-governmental regulation' is largely driven by non-state actors and is therefore commonly viewed as suffering a democracy deficit. However, because it stresses broad participation, intensive deliberative procedures, responsiveness to state law and widely accepted norms, and competition among regulatory programs to achieve effective implementation and widespread public acceptance, this form of regulation appears to stand up relatively well under generally understood criteria for democratic governance. Nonetheless, a more satisfactory evaluation will require a much better understanding …

I Share, Therefore It's Mine, Donald J. Kochan

Donald J. Kochan

De L'Affaire Katanga Au Contrat Social Global: Un Regard Sur La Cour Pénale Internationale, Juan Branco

Juan Branco

No abstract provided.

Restorative Justice From The Margins To The Center- The Emergence Of A New Norm In School Discipline.Pdf, Thalia Gonzalez

Thalia Gonzalez

Three Voices Of Socio-Legal Studies, Malcolm M. Feeley

Malcolm Feeley

No abstract provided.

The Intelligibility Of Extralegal State Action: A General Lesson For Debates On Public Emergencies And Legality, François Tanguay-Renaud

François Tanguay-Renaud

Some legal theorists deny that states can conceivably act extralegally in the sense of acting contrary to domestic law. This position finds its most robust articulation in the writings of Hans Kelsen and has more recently been taken up by David Dyzenhaus in the context of his work on emergencies and legality. This paper seeks to demystify their arguments and ultimately contend that we can intelligibly speak of the state as a legal wrongdoer or a legally unauthorized actor.

Criminalizing The State, François Tanguay-Renaud

François Tanguay-Renaud

François Tanguay-Renaud, Associate Professor, Osgood Hall Law School speaks about political theory and criminal law, asking the underexplored question of whether the state, as opposed to its individual members, can intelligibly and legitimately be criminalized, with a specific focus on the possibility of its domestic criminalization. He identifies the core objections to the criminalization of states, for example, objections to the condemnation and punishment of the state, as a result of a suitably ‘criminal’ process of public accountability, for the culpable perpetration of legal wrongs. He then investigate ways in which these objections can be challenged.

Islamic Legal Theory And The Legitimacy Of Secular Positive Law: Is Modern Religious Liberty Sufficient For The Islamic Legal Maqsad ('Ultimate Objective') Of Hifz Al-Din ('Preserving Religion')?, Andrew March, Mohamad Al-Hakim, Michael Giudice, François Tanguay-Renaud

François Tanguay-Renaud

Andrew F. March, Associate Professor of Political Science, Yale University, examines some treatments of the meaning and extension of the Islamic legal purpose (maqad) of protecting religion (hifz al-din), with an eye towards Islamic legal theorists’ explicit or implicit encounter with modern liberal and secularist understandings of what it means to “protect religion.”

Respondent: Mohamad Al-Hakim, York University, Philosophy.

Crime And The Distribution Of Security, Victor Tadros, Susan Dimock, François Tanguay-Renaud

François Tanguay-Renaud

Victor Tadros, University of Warwick, speaks about a theory of criminalization and constraints on conduct. He considers the application of the harm principle and suggests that in addition to this harm constraint a wrongfulness constraint and a punishment constraint could also be considered. He also investigates the principles that govern decisions around the criminalization of conduct.

Rethinking Criminal Law Theory: New Canadian Perspectives In The Philosophy Of Domestic, Transnational, And International Criminal Law, François Tanguay-Renaud, James Stribopoulos

François Tanguay-Renaud

In the last two decades, the philosophy of criminal law has undergone a vibrant revival in Canada. The adoption of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms has given the Supreme Court of Canada unprecedented latitude to engage with principles of legal, moral, and political philosophy when elaborating its criminal law jurisprudence. Canadian scholars have followed suit by paying increased attention to the philosophical foundations of domestic criminal law. Because of Canada's leadership in international criminal law, both at the level of the International Criminal Court and of specific war crimes tribunals, they have also begun to turn their attention to …

Emergency Powers And Constitutional Theory, Victor V. Ramraj, François Tanguay-Renaud, Michael Guidice

François Tanguay-Renaud

Drawing on the experiences of aspiring constitutional orders in Southeast Asia (East Timor, Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand) with emergency powers, Victor V. Ramraj, National University of Singapore, seeks to shift the attention of constitutional theorists away from parochial debates, towards an understanding of constitutional theory and emergency powers that extends beyond the familiar domain of liberal democracies.

respondent: François Tanguay-Renaud Osgoode

Four Concepts Of Validity: Further Reflections On The Inclusive/Exclusive Positivism Debate, Will Waluchow, Leslie Green, Michael Guidice, François Tanguay-Renaud

François Tanguay-Renaud

Wil Waluchow, McMaster University, discusses four concepts of legal validity and how these might help understand the role of constitutional moral tests for legal validity.

Respondent: Les Green Osgoode Hall Law School/Oxford University

Descendants Of Realism?: Policy-Oriented International Lawyers As Guardians Of Democracy, Hengameh Saberi

Hengameh Saberi

No abstract provided.

Between The Scylla Of Legal Formalism And The Charybdis Of Policy Conceptualism: Yale's Policy Science And International Law, Hengameh Saberi

Hengameh Saberi

An invisible but enduring legacy of the New Haven School, understood through this paper’s counter-narrative, is a new vista through which to caution against the pitfalls of policy reasoning and to demand its promises. International legal theory has a relatively clear sense about abuse of deduction when found in legal interpretation, but it has little to say about similar defects in policy reasoning. Equally undertheorized are our ideas about the very concept of policy and its place in international legal argumentation. Pursued policy objectives might be principled or flexible and their application flexible or principled. So a combination of principled …

An Essay On Private Remedies, Emily Sherwin

Emily L Sherwin

No abstract provided.

Legal Rules And Social Reform, Emily Sherwin

Emily L Sherwin

No abstract provided.

Table Annexed To Article: Machine-Readable Text Of The Federalist Essays, Peter J. Aschenbrenner

Peter J. Aschenbrenner

Our Constitutional Logic presents readers with its source files, that is, the text which it employed in scored word counts, frequencies and VerbumForte scores. The table annexed includes the machine-readable text of all eighty-five Federalist essays. Because many on-line versions are broken into segments which render searches (virtually) impractical.

Economics-Based Environmentalism In The Fourth Generation Of Environmental Law, Donald J. Kochan

Donald J. Kochan

Environmental protection and economic concerns are not mutually exclusive. This article explores some of the issues of economic analysis that might arise as we approach the fourth generation of environmental law. It explains ways that economic analysis can be employed to generate the best environmental rules, including measures under what this article terms as "economics-based environmentalism." Economics-based environmentalism contends that the advantages of using economic principles within a “polycentric toolbox” of environmental law come from the benefits available in private ordering, markets, property rights, liability regimes and incentives structures that will better protect the environment than alternatives like state-based interventionist, …

A Framework For Understanding Property Regulation And Land Use Control From A Dynamic Perspective, Donald J. Kochan

Donald J. Kochan

The Psychological Foundations Of Behavioral Law And Economics, Jeffrey J. Rachlinski

Jeffrey J. Rachlinski

Over the past decade, psychological research has enjoyed a rapidly expanding influence on legal scholarship. This expansion has established a new field—“Behavioral Law and Economics” (BLE). BLE’s principal insight is that human behavior commonly deviates from the predictions of rational choice theory in the marketplace, the election booth, and the courtroom. Because these deviations are predictable, and often harmful, legal rules can be crafted to reduce their undesirable influence. Ironically, BLE seldom recognizes that its intellectual origins lie with psychology more so than economics. This failure leaves BLE open to criticisms that can be answered only by embracing the underlying …

Is Evolutionary Analysis Of Law Science Or Storytelling?, Jeffrey J. Rachlinski

Jeffrey J. Rachlinski

In recent years, some legal scholars have argued that legal scholarship could benefit from a greater reliance on theories of human behavior that arise from biological evolution. These scholars contend that reliance on biological evolution would successfully combine the rigor of economics with the scientific aspects of psychology. Complex legal systems, however, are uniquely human. Law has always been the product of cognitive processes that are unique to humans and that developed as a response to an environment that no longer exists. Consequently, the evolutionary development of the cognitive mechanisms upon which law depends cannot be rigorously modeled or studied …