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Full-Text Articles in Law
Felony Murder And Mens Rea Default Rules: A Study In Statutory Interpretation, Guyora Binder
Felony Murder And Mens Rea Default Rules: A Study In Statutory Interpretation, Guyora Binder
Journal Articles
The Model Penal Code's influential approach to culpability included default rules assigning a culpable mental state to every conduct, circumstance and result element of each offense. Such rules have been enacted in half of the American states. The Code's drafters also rejected what they understood to be the felony murder rule's imposition of "a form of strict liability for... homicide." Yet almost every state has retained some form of the felony murder rule and so repudiated the Model Penal Code's proposed reform. Because the Model Penal Code's disapproval of felony murder flows from its general disapproval of strict liability, the …
Meaning And Motive In The Law Of Homicide (Reviewing Samuel H. Pillsbury, Judging Evil: Rethinking The Law Of Murder And Manslaughter), Guyora Binder
Meaning And Motive In The Law Of Homicide (Reviewing Samuel H. Pillsbury, Judging Evil: Rethinking The Law Of Murder And Manslaughter), Guyora Binder
Book Reviews
Many criminal law scholars have criticized the Model Penal Code’s restrictive conception of culpability as awareness of risk, and have sought to incorporate motives and desires into culpoability analysis. In his excellent book Judging Evil, Samuel Pillsbury has applied this richer conception of culpability to homicide law. The result is a comprehensive theory of homicide liability, unified by an effort to predicate liability on deficient moral reasoning rather than merely awareness of risk. This review essay explicates and commends Pillsbury’s theory but also criticizes one crucial deficiency. Pillsbury shrinks from one of the most obvious but potentially most controversial implications …