Law Commons^™

Unwell: Indiana V. Edwards And The Fate Of Mentally Ill Pro Se Defendants, John H. Blume, Morgan J. Clark

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

A Normative Theory Of The Clean Hands Defense, Ori J. Herstein

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

What is the clean hands defense (CHD) normatively about? Courts designate court integrity as the CHD’s primary norm. Yet, while the CHD may at times further court integrity it is not fully aligned with court integrity. In addition to occasionally instrumentally furthering certain goods (e.g., court legitimacy, judge integrity, deterrence), the CHD embodies two judicially undetected norms: retribution and tu quoque (“you too!”). Tu quoque captures the moral intuition that wrongdoers are in no position to blame, condemn, or make claims on others who are guilty of similar or related wrongdoing. The CHD shares the structure of the tu quoque: …

Universal Jurisdiction Not So Universal: A Time To Delegate To The International Criminal Court, Dalila V. Hoover

Cornell Law School Inter-University Graduate Student Conference Papers

The exercise of universal jurisdiction in cases involving crimes under international law remains highly debated and underlines a certain number of legal and political issues in its implementation. Because the principle of universal jurisdiction relies on national authorities to enforce international prohibitions, pivotal decisions are expected to reflect, to a greater or lesser extent, domestic decision-makers’ positions as to the interests of justice, the national interest and other criteria. In many States, the legal system lacks the means to investigate or prosecute on the basis of universal jurisdiction. Indeed, many legal systems do not define the term “crimes” that can …

From Protection To Punishment: Post-Conviction Barriers To Justice For Domestic Violence Survivor-Defendants In New York State, Tamar Kraft-Stolar, Elizabeth Brundige, Sital Kalantry, Jocelyn Getgen Kestenbaum, Avon Global Center For Women And Justice At Cornell Law School, Women In Prison Project (Correctional Association Of New York)

Avon Global Center for Women and Justice and Dorothea S. Clarke Program in Feminist Jurisprudence

No abstract provided.

Piracy Off The Coast Of Somalia: In Search Of The Solution, Alexandr Rahmonov

Cornell Law School Inter-University Graduate Student Conference Papers

Piracy it is not a phenomenon of the past. Modern piracy has become a profitable business, especially off the coast of Somalia, where thousands of pirates are currently involved in criminal activity targeting all kinds of vessels from fishing boats to oil supertankers. Only in 2009, Somali pirates committed about 217 attempted and actual attacks. As a response, the UN Security Council has passed several resolutions authorising military raids against pirates "on land and by air" and requested the Secretary-General to submit a report offering effective counter-piracy measures. Drafted in July 2010, the "Report on possible options to further the …

Biases In Domestic Violence Criminal Decision Making: Are System Actors Lenient In Domestic Violence Cases?, Silvana Del Valle

Cornell Law School Inter-University Graduate Student Conference Papers

This essay makes a review of studies about the presence of biases against victims in the Judicial Decisionmaking of Domestic Violence (DV) crimes. The global recognition of the phenomenon has promoted a legal reform movement, in which the United States has been part. The first reform in the topic in the US was the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) of 1991. This federal statute detected biases not only in the judges, but also in other criminal prosecution actors -police departments and prosecutors. Then, it introduced research funds and legal tools to fight against biases, under the premise that DV is …

Joint Intentions To Commit International Crimes, Jens David Ohlin

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

The following article is an attempt to provide a coherent theory that international tribunals may use to ground the imposition of vicarious liability for collective crimes. Currently, the case law and the literature is focused on a debate between the Joint Criminal Enterprise (JCE) doctrine applied by the ICTY and the co-perpetration doctrine applied by the ICC, which defines co-perpetrators as those who have joint control over the collective crime. The latter doctrine, influenced by German criminal law theory, has recently won many converts, both in The Hague and in the Academy, because it allegedly avoids many of the pitfalls …

Life, Death, And Neuroimaging: The Advantages And Disadvantages Of The Defense's Use Of Neuroimages In Capital Cases - Lessons From The Front, John H. Blume, Emily C. Paavola

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

The use of neuroimaging in capital cases has become increasingly common. An informal survey of cases produced over one hundred opinions from reported decisions alone discussing the use of computed tomography (CT) scanning, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), functional MRI, positron emission tomography (PET) scans, single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) scans, and similar technology in capital cases. This article gives practical advice to defense counsel considering the use of neuroimaging in a capital case. We discuss how, in the right case, this technology can be a valuable investigative tool used to produce an important component of a successful mitigation story. However, …

Bowman Lives: The Extraterritorial Application Of U.S. Criminal Law After Morrison V. National Australia Bank, Zachary D. Clopton

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Reconsidering Trials In Absentia At The Special Tribunal For Lebanon: An Application Of The Tribunal's Early Jurisprudence, Maggie Gardner

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Since Nuremburg, no individual has been prosecuted in an international or internationalized court entirely in his or her absence. That may soon change. The Special Tribunal for Lebanon, which is empowered to try defendants in absentia, has now confirmed its first indictment. While its trial in absentia procedures were met with concern and criticism from some quarters when they were first announced, reconsideration is warranted in light of subsequent judicial developments. The judges of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon have now established in their preliminary decisions an interpretive approach to the Tribunal’s Statute that is adamantly purposive. This purposive approach …

Combating Acid Violence In Bangladesh, India, And Cambodia, Sital Kalantry, Jocelyn Getgen Kestenbaum

Avon Global Center for Women and Justice and Dorothea S. Clarke Program in Feminist Jurisprudence

This Report is the first comprehensive, comparative study of acid violence that examines the underlying causes, its consequences, and the multiple barriers to justice for its victims. Acid attacks, like other forms of violence against women, are not random or natural phenomena. Rather, they are social phenomena deeply embedded in a gender order that has historically privileged patriarchal control over women and justified the use of violence to “keep women in their places.”

Through an in-depth study of three countries, the authors of the Report argue that the due diligence standard can be a powerful tool for state and non-state …