Law Commons^™

Reconceiving Coercion-Based Criminal Defenses, Stephen R. Galoob, Erin L. Sheley

Faculty Scholarship

Coercing someone is sometimes wrong and sometimes a crime. People subject to coercion are sometimes eligible for criminal defenses, such as duress. How, exactly, does coercion operate in such contexts? Among legal scholars, the predominant understanding of coercion is the “wrongful pressure” model, which states that coercion exists when the coercer wrongfully threatens the target and, as a result of this threat, the target is pressured to act in accordance with the coercer’s threat. Some tokens of coercion do not fit neatly within existing legal categories or the wrongful pressure model of coercion. For example, coercive control is a psychological …

Invoking Federal Common Law Defenses In Immigration Cases, Fatma Marouf

Faculty Scholarship

This Article argues that we should take a deeper look at the applicability of federal common law defenses in immigration cases. In the rare cases where noncitizens attempt to raise common law defenses, such arguments tend to be dismissed offhand by immigration judges simply because removal proceedings are technically civil, not criminal. Yet many common-law defenses may be raised in civil cases. Additionally, immigration proceedings have become increasingly intertwined with the criminal system. After examining how judges already rely on federal common law to fill in gaps in the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), this Article proposes three categories of …

Sign Or Die: The Threat Of Imminent Physical Harm And The Doctrine Of Duress In Contract Law, Daniel P. O'Gorman

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll's Will: A Tale Of Testamentary Capacity, Stephen R. Alton

Faculty Scholarship

Robert Louis Stevenson’s classic novella, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, published in 1886, is the well-known tale of a respected scientist (Dr. Henry Jekyll) who transforms himself into an evil-doer (Mr. Edward Hyde). While the work raises issues of tort and criminal liability, this article analyzes the legal issues presented by one particular and crucial plot device that Stevenson employs—the last will of Dr. Jekyll. This will so obsesses Jekyll’s friend and solicitor, Gabriel John Utterson (through whose eyes the story unfolds), that he is impelled to seek the truth behind his friend’s relationship to Hyde. …

Duress As Rent-Seeking, Mark Seidenfeld, Murat C. Mungan

Faculty Scholarship

The doctrine of duress allows a party to avoid its contractual obligations when that party was induced to enter the contract by a wrongful threat while in a dire position that left it no choice but to enter the contract. Although threats of criminal or tortious conduct clearly are wrongful, under the doctrine of “economic duress” courts have held that other threats can be wrongful and hence the basis of a duress defense. Courts, however, have not developed a coherent understanding of what makes such non-criminal and non-tortious threats wrongful.

This Article proposes that a threat should be wrongful when …