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Ambivalence About Treason, George P. Fletcher
Ambivalence About Treason, George P. Fletcher
Faculty Scholarship
Betrayal and disloyalty are grievous moral wrongs, yet today when the disloyal commit treason we seem reluctant to punish them. John Walker Lindh fought for the Taliban with full knowledge that it was engaged in hostilities against the United States. It should not have been so difficult to prove by two witnesses to the overt act, as the Constitution requires, that he adhered to the enemy giving them aid and comfort. Admittedly, there were legal problems about whether the Taliban as an indirect enemy in an undeclared war could qualify as the enemy in the constitutional sense. But there was …
The Case For Treason, George P. Fletcher
The Case For Treason, George P. Fletcher
Faculty Scholarship
"If this be treason, make the most of it." Patrick Henry had no fear of the ultimate crime against his King. Nor did the burghers of Maryland who set ablaze the Peggy Stewart in Annapolis Harbor. One would think that for us as Americans the crime of treason would carry special significance. Our nation was born in acts of treason. The threat of prosecution made the crime foremost in the mind of the constitutional draftsmen. Indeed, treason is the only crime to find definition in our basic document.
There are other indications that the crime of treason is central to …
"No Soul To Damn: No Body To Kick": An Unscandalized Inquiry Into The Problem Of Corporate Punishment, John C. Coffee Jr.
"No Soul To Damn: No Body To Kick": An Unscandalized Inquiry Into The Problem Of Corporate Punishment, John C. Coffee Jr.
Faculty Scholarship
Did you ever expect a corporation to have a conscience, when it has no soul to be damned, and no body to be kicked?
—Edward, First Baron Thurlow 1731-1806
The Lord Chancellor of England quoted above was neither the first nor the last judge to experience frustration when faced with a convicted corporation. American sentencing judges are likely to face a similar dilemma with increasing frequency in the near future, for a number of signs indicate that corporate prosecutions will become increasingly commonplace. At first glance, the problem of corporate punishment seems perversely insoluble: moderate fines do not deter, …