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Northwestern Pritzker School of Law

Northwestern Journal of Law & Social Policy

2009

Amendment

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Articles 1 - 2 of 2

Full-Text Articles in Law

Revisiting Beccaria's Vision: The Enlightenment, America's Death Penalty, And The Abolition Movement, John D. Bessler Jan 2009

Revisiting Beccaria's Vision: The Enlightenment, America's Death Penalty, And The Abolition Movement, John D. Bessler

Northwestern Journal of Law & Social Policy

In 1764, Cesare Beccaria, a 26-year-old Italian, penned . The treatise argued that state-sanctioned executions and torture violate natural law. As we near the 250th anniversary of its publication, author John D. Bessler provides a comprehensive review of the abolition movement, from before Beccaria's time to the present. Bessler reviews Beccaria's influence on Enlightenment thinkers and more importantly, on America's Founding Fathers. The Article also provides an extensive review of Eighth Amendment jurisprudence and then contrasts it with the trend in International Law towards the abolition of the death penalty. It then discusses the current state of the death penalty …


Unwilling Warriors: An Examination Of The Power To Conscript In Peacetime, Jason Britt Jan 2009

Unwilling Warriors: An Examination Of The Power To Conscript In Peacetime, Jason Britt

Northwestern Journal of Law & Social Policy

As military involvement overseas persists, pressure to increase the size of the armed services will continue. While higher bonuses and lower recruiting standards relieve this pressure, these measures may not be enough and an active military draft is an attractive alternative. Indeed, although the military draft has been inactive for nearly thirty years, current U.S. involvement overseas has aroused discussion for reactivation of the military draft. In light of this call to reactive the draft, this Student Comment proposes a framework for analyzing the constitutionality of an active military draft under the Thirteenth Amendment. Specifically, this Comment argues that courts …