Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
Articles 1 - 3 of 3
Full-Text Articles in Law
Murder, Minority, Victims, And Mercy, Aya Gruber
Murder, Minority, Victims, And Mercy, Aya Gruber
University of Colorado Law Review
Should the jury have acquitted George Zimmerman of Trayvon Martin's murder? Should enraged husbands receive a pass for killing their cheating wives? Should the law treat a homosexual advance as adequate provocation for killing? Criminal law scholars generally answer these questions with a resounding "no." Theorists argue that criminal laws should not reflect bigoted perceptions of African Americans, women, and gays by permitting judges and jurors to treat those who kill racial and gender minorities with undue mercy. According to this view, murder defenses like provocation should be restricted to ensure that those who kill minority victims receive the harshest …
Different Names For The Same Thing: Domestic Homicides And Dowry Deaths In The Western Media, Jennifer Parker
Different Names For The Same Thing: Domestic Homicides And Dowry Deaths In The Western Media, Jennifer Parker
University of Colorado Law Review
Domestic violence is a global phenomenon that knows no geographic or cultural bounds. Whether they are shot, poisoned, stabbed, or burned, women across the world are dying at the hands of their male partners. Nevertheless, the Western media's portrayal of dowry deaths in India illustrates American society's failure to, or refusal to, connect dowry deaths to the parallel domestic homicides committed in the United States every day. From a postcolonial feminist standpoint, this Note argues that this disjunction is neither accidental nor inconsequential but rather reinforces the United States' hegemonic self-perception as a society in which women's liberation has been …
Intimate Homicide: Gender And Crime Control, 1880-1920, Carolyn B. Ramsey
Intimate Homicide: Gender And Crime Control, 1880-1920, Carolyn B. Ramsey
University of Colorado Law Review
The received wisdom, among feminists and others, is that historically the criminal justice system tolerated male violence against women. This article dramatically revises feminist understanding of the legal history of public responses to intimate homicide by showing that, in both the eastern and the western United States, men accused of killing their intimates often received stern punishment, including the death penalty, whereas women charged with similar crimes were treated leniently. Although no formal "battered woman's defense" existed in the late 1800s and early 1900s, courts and juries implicitly recognized one-and even extended it to abandoned women who killed their unfaithful …