Law Commons^™

Individualizing Criminal Law’S Justice Judgments: Shortcomings In The Doctrines Of Culpability, Mitigation, And Excuse, Paul H. Robinson, Lindsay Holcomb

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In judging an offender’s culpability, mitigation, or excuse, there seems to be general agreement that it is appropriate for the criminal law to take into account such things as the offender’s youthfulness or her significantly low IQ. There is even support for taking account of their distorted perceptions and reasoning induced by traumatic experiences, as in battered spouse syndrome. On the other hand, there seems to be equally strong opposition to taking account of things such as racism or homophobia that played a role in bringing about the offense. In between these two clear points, however, exists a large collection …

A Brief Summary And Critique Of Criminal Liability Rules For Intoxicated Conduct, Paul H. Robinson

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This essay provides an overview of the legal issues relating to intoxication, including the effect of voluntary intoxication in imputing to an offender a required offense culpable state of mind that he may not actually have had at the time of the offense; the effect of involuntary intoxication in providing a defense by negating a required offense culpability element or by satisfying the conditions of a general excuse; the legal effect of alcoholism or addiction in rendering intoxication involuntary; and the limitation on using alcoholism or addiction in this way if the offender can be judged to be reasonably responsible …

The Inevitability And Ubiquity Of Cycling In All Feasible Legal Regimes: A Formal Proof, Leo Katz, Alvaro Sandroni

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Intransitive choices, or cycling, are generally held to be the mark of irrationality. When a set of rules engenders such choices, it is usually held to be irrational and in need of reform. In this article, we prove a series of theorems, demonstrating that all feasible legal regimes are going to be rife with cycling. Our first result, the legal cycling theorem, shows that unless a legal system meets some extremely restrictive conditions, it will lead to cycling. The discussion that follows, along with our second result, the combination theorem, shows exactly why these conditions are almost impossible to meet. …

The American Criminal Code: General Defenses, Paul H. Robinson, Matthew Kussmaul, Camber Stoddard, Ilya Rudyak, Andreas Kuersten

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There are fifty-two bodies of criminal law in the United States. Each stakes out often diverse positions on a range of issues. This article defines the “American rule” for each of the issues relating to general defenses, a first contribution towards creating an “American Criminal Code.”

The article is the result of a several-year research project examining every issue relating to justification, excuse, and non-exculpatory defenses. It determines the majority American position among the fifty-two jurisdictions, and formulates statutory language for each defense that reflects that majority rule. The article also compares and contrasts the majority position to significant minority …

A Good Enough Reason: Addiction, Agency And Criminal Responsibility, Stephen J. Morse

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The article begins by contrasting medical and moral views of addiction and how such views influence responsibility and policy analysis. It suggests that since addiction always involves action and action can always be morally evaluated, we must independently decide whether addicts do not meet responsibility criteria rather than begging the question and deciding by the label of ‘disease’ or ‘moral weakness’. It then turns to the criteria for criminal responsibility and shows that the criteria for criminal responsibility, like the criteria for addiction, are all folk psychological. Therefore, any scientific information about addiction must be ‘translated’ into the law’s folk …

A System Of Excuses: How Criminal Law’S Excuse Defenses Do, And Don’T, Work Together To Exculpate Blameless (And Only Blameless) Offenders, Paul H. Robinson

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Criminal law excuses are analyzed as a group of analogous doctrines working together to exculpate blameless offenders. The analysis reveals that current law doctrine, although it often is not explicit about the parallel and integrated operation of its excuse defenses, does much to perform this exculpatory function. However, the systematic perspective of excuses also reveals some serious shortcomings of current doctrines.

Justification And Excuse, Law And Morality, Mitchell N. Berman

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Anglo-American theorists of the criminal law have concentrated on-one is tempted to say "obsessed over"-the distinction between justification and excuse for a good quarter-century and the scholarly attention has purchased unusually widespread agreement. Justification defenses are said to apply when the actor's conduct was not morally wrongful; excuse defenses lie when the actor did engage in wrongful conduct but is not morally blameworthy. A near consensus thus achieved, theorists have turned to subordinate matters, joining issue most notably on the question of whether justifications are "subjective"-turning upon the actor's reasons for acting-or "objective"-involving only facts independent of the actor's beliefs …