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Self-Defence In An Age Of Terrorism: Introductory Remarks, Mark A. Drumbl

Scholarly Articles

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Victim Wrongs: The Case For A General Criminal Defense Based On Wrongful Victim Behavior In An Era Of Victims' Rights, Aya Gruber

Publications

Criminal law scholarship is rife with analysis of the victims' rights movement. Many articles identify with the outrage of victims harmed by deviant criminal elements. Other scholarly pieces criticize the movement's denuding of defendants' constitutional trial rights. The point upon which proponents and opponents of the movement tend to agree, however, is that the victim should never be blamed for the crime. The helpless, harmed, innocent victim is someone with whom we can all identify and someone to whom we can all express sympathy. Victim blaming, by all accounts, is an act of legal heresy to feminists, victim advocates, and …

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Reconceptualizing Criminal Law Defenses, Victoria Nourse

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

In 1933, one of the leading theorists of the criminal law, Jerome Michael, wrote openly of the criminal law "as an instrument of the state." Today, criminal law is largely allergic to claims of political theory; commentators obsess about theories of deterrence and retribution, and the technical details of model codes and sentencing grids, but rarely speak of institutional effects or political commitments. In this article, the author aims to change that emphasis and to examine the criminal law as a tool for governance. Her approach is explicitly constructive: it accepts the criminal law that we have, places it in …