Law Commons^™

How (Not) To Think Like A Punisher, Alice G. Ristroph

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

This article examines the several and sometimes contradictory accounts of sentencing in proposed revisions to the Model Penal Code. At times, sentencing appears to be an art, dependent upon practical wisdom; in other instances, sentencing seems more of a science, dependent upon close analysis of empirical data. I argue that the new Code provisions are at their best when they acknowledge the legal and political complexities of sentencing, and at their worst when they invoke the rhetoric of desert. When the Code focuses on the sentencing process in political context, it offers opportunities to deploy both practical wisdom and empirical …

The Provocation Defense And The Nature Of Justification, Marcia Baron

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

In this Essay, I evaluate the evidence of "adequate nonprovocation” that Fontaine puts forward to show that the heat of passion defense is decidedly an excuse (more precisely, a partial excuse). I will be focusing my remarks on the traditional heat of passion defense.

Good Conduct Time: How Much And For Whom? The Unprincipled Approach Of The Model Penal Code, Nora V. Demleitner

Scholarly Articles

Not available.

Introduction To The Symposium On The Model Penal Code's Sentencing Proposals, Christopher Slobogin

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

Begun in the 1950s, the drafting of the Model Penal Code (the Code) differed from the typical American Law Institute (AL) "restatement" of the law project because it was an explicit attempt to provide a model statute that would advance doctrine and practice rather than merely describe it. Scores of lawyers, judges, academics and policymakers actively participated in the process of devising the Code. Their efforts paid off. As Gerard Lynch wrote in 1998, "[t]he Model Penal Code is among the most successful academic law reform projects ever attempted.", During the 1960s and 1970s, well over half the states revamped …

The Cultural Defense: Reflections In Light Of The Model Penal Code And The Religious Freedom Restoration Act, Kent Greenawalt

Faculty Scholarship

I wrote this essay after participating in a 2006 workshop on Criminal Law and Cultural Diversity, which discussed, among other subjects, the wisdom of providing a "cultural defense." Uncertain just how far such a defense might expand on defenses already available, I undertook to explore that topic.

The phrase "a cultural defense" suggests an either/or choice that any legal system might make. That matters are much more complex than this is part of the burden of this essay. A "cultural defense" in its most general sense refers to a wide range of ways in which evidence about a defendant's cultural …