Law Commons^™

Decoding Guilty Minds: How Jurors Attribute Knowledge And Guilt, Matthew R. Ginther, Francis X. Shen, Richard J. Bonnie, Morris B. Hoffman, Owen D. Jones, Kenneth W. Simons

Vanderbilt Law Review

Our personal data is everywhere and anywhere, moving across national borders in ways that defy normal expectations of how things and people travel from Point A to Point B. Yet, whereas data transits the globe without any intrinsic ties to territory, the governments that seek to access or regulate this data operate with territorial-based limits. This Article tackles the inherent tension between how governments and data operate, the jurisdictional conflicts that have emerged, and the power that has been delegated to the multinational corporations that manage our data across borders as a result. It does so through the lens of …

The Language Of Mens Rea, Matthew R. Ginther, Francis X. Shen, Richard J. Bonnie, Morris B. Hoffman, Owen D. Jones, Rene Marois, Kenneth W. Simons

Vanderbilt Law Review

To be guilty of a crime, generally one must commit a bad act while in a culpable state of mind. But the language used to define, partition, and communicate the variety of culpable mental states (in Latin, mens rea) is crucially important. For depending on the mental state that juries attribute to him, a defendant can be convicted-for the very same act and the very same consequence-of different crimes, each with different sentences.

The influential Model Penal Code ("MPC") of 1962 divided culpable mental states into four now-familiar kinds: purposeful, knowing, reckless, and negligent.' Both before the MPC and since, …

"No Provincial Or Transient Notion": The Need For A Mistake Of Age Defense In Child Rape Prosecutions, Jarrod F. Reich

Vanderbilt Law Review

Suppose a state legislature enacted a law making any theft a crime punishable by twenty years' imprisonment. Within this law was a provision precluding an accused from introducing evidence that he unwittingly took property to which he was not entitled. Suppose further that after this law was enacted, an elderly woman hung her black coat in a restaurant's lobby and, upon leaving, mistakenly retrieved another's black coat. Under the hypothetical statute, her mistake could neither hinder the prosecution's case against her nor be asserted by her as a defense. By inadvertently taking another's coat from a crowded restaurant, the woman …

Rule 10b-5-The Equivalent Scope Of Liability Under Respondeat Superior And Section 20(A)-Imposing A Benefit Requirement On Apparent Authority, Carol M. Lynch

Vanderbilt Law Review

This Note demonstrates that the scope of employer liability for employees' rule 10b-5 violations is no broader under a proper application of respondeat superior than under section 20(a). This Note does not address the question whether respondeat superior applies under rule 10b-5, but rather how courts should apply it.

Part II examines the majority, minority, and Third Circuit decisions on employer liability. Part III discusses the traditional analysis under both respondeat superior and section 20(a) and compares the scope of liability under each one. Part III concludes that except for an employer's liability for acts that are within an employee's …

Criminal Law And Procedure -- 1964 Tennessee Survey, Graham Parker, Robert E. Kendrick

Vanderbilt Law Review

The substantive criminal law receives little attention from the Tennessee appellate courts. No doubt this observation would be equally true of most jurisdictions. To one who received his legal training in a common law system of criminal law and who yet has had some experience with Canada's federal code of criminal law, the emphasis on criminal procedure is surprising. Does this mean that the state codes of substantive law have reached such heights of perfection and expertise that the efforts of the Model Penal Code draftsmen are unnecessary or, at best, academic? It is unlikely. The position rather reflects a …