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Articles 1 - 10 of 10

Full-Text Articles in Law

Ignorance Of Law Is An Excuse - But Only For The Virtuous, Dan M. Kahan Oct 1997

Ignorance Of Law Is An Excuse - But Only For The Virtuous, Dan M. Kahan

Michigan Law Review

It's axiomatic that "ignorance of the law is no excuse." My aim in this essay is to examine what the "mistake of law doctrine" reveals about the relationship between criminal law and morality in general and about the law's understanding of moral responsibility in particular. The conventional understanding of the mistake of law doctrine rests on two premises, which are encapsulated in the Holmesian epigrams with which I've started this essay. The first is liberal positivism. As a descriptive claim, liberal positivism holds that the content of the law can be identified without reference to morality: one needn't be a …


Response: Between Economics And Sociology: The New Path Of Deterrence, Dan M. Kahan Aug 1997

Response: Between Economics And Sociology: The New Path Of Deterrence, Dan M. Kahan

Michigan Law Review

The explosive collision of economics and sociology has long illuminated the landscape of deterrence theory. It is a debate as hopeless as it is spectacular. Economics is practical but thin. Starting from the simple premise that individuals rationally maximize their utility, economics generates a robust schedule of prescriptions - from the appropriate size of criminal penalties,1 to the optimal form of criminal punishments, to the most efficient mix of private and public investments in deterrence. Yet it is the very economy of economics that ultimately subverts it: its account of human motivations is too simplistic to be believable, and it …


Montanav. Egelhoff: Voluntary Intoxication, Morality, And The Constitution , Robert J. Mcmanus Apr 1997

Montanav. Egelhoff: Voluntary Intoxication, Morality, And The Constitution , Robert J. Mcmanus

American University Law Review

No abstract provided.


Romer V. Evans And The Permissibility Of Morality Legislation, S. I. Strong Jan 1997

Romer V. Evans And The Permissibility Of Morality Legislation, S. I. Strong

Faculty Publications

In the late 1950s and early 1960s, two of England's most respected jurists engaged in an on-going debate that would take the legal world by storm. The debate concerned whether and to what extent morality should be reflected in the law and was instigated by the publication of the Wolfenden Report, a study presented to Parliament as it considered whether to repeal certain antisodomy laws in Great Britain. On the one hand was Lord Patrick Devlin, a Lord of Appeal in Ordinary later elevated to the House of Lords, Britain's highest court. Devlin opposed the conclusions contained in the Wolfenden …


The Importance Of Humility In Judicial Review: A Comment On Ronald Dworkin's Moral Reading Of The Constitution, Michael W. Mcconnell Jan 1997

The Importance Of Humility In Judicial Review: A Comment On Ronald Dworkin's Moral Reading Of The Constitution, Michael W. Mcconnell

Fordham Law Review

No abstract provided.


Constitutional Invocations , Frederick Schauer Jan 1997

Constitutional Invocations , Frederick Schauer

Fordham Law Review

No abstract provided.


Fidelity To Our Imperfect Constitution, James E. Fleming Jan 1997

Fidelity To Our Imperfect Constitution, James E. Fleming

Fordham Law Review

No abstract provided.


Comment On Maccormick, William Ewald Jan 1997

Comment On Maccormick, William Ewald

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.


On Living One Way In Town And Another Way At Home, Thomas L. Shaffer Jan 1997

On Living One Way In Town And Another Way At Home, Thomas L. Shaffer

Journal Articles

The title of this Lecture is from Harper Lee's novel To Kill a Mockingbird. The occasion for the proposition is when the smalltown southern gentleman-lawyer Atticus Finch is given an opportunity to lie to protect his son from harm. He refuses. He says that the most important thing he has for his son is not protection but integrity. He says, "I can't live one way in town and another way in my home. "

The separation of town from home is an old one in the history of lawyers in America. When you trace the nineteenth-century development of legal ethics, …


Integrity And Universality: A Comment On Dworkin's Freedom's Law, Robin West Jan 1997

Integrity And Universality: A Comment On Dworkin's Freedom's Law, Robin West

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Ronald Dworkin has done more than any other constitutional lawyer, past or present, to impress upon us the importance of integrity to constitutional law, and hence to our shared public life. Far from being merely a private virtue, Dworkin has shown that integrity imposes constraints upon and provides guidance to the work of judges in constitutional cases: Every constitutional case that comes before a court must be decided by recourse to the same moral principles that have dictated results in relevant similar cases in the past. Any group or individual challenging the constitutionality of legislation which adversely affects his or …