Law Commons^™

“Collusion” And The Criminal Law, Robert M. Sanger

Robert M. Sanger

Decoding The Impossibility Defense, Daniel B. Yeager

Faculty Scholarship

Impossible attempts were first officially recognized as non-criminal in 1864, the idea being that a person whose anti-social bent poses no appreciable risk of harm is no criminal. To reassure myself the subject doesn’t “smell of the lamp,” I tapped “impossibility” into Westlaw, which designated over 3000 criminal cases as on point, 1200 or so more recent than 1999. Impossible attempts thus turn out to be not merely a professorial hobby horse, but instead, expressive of a non-trivial tension between risk-taking and harm-causing within the very real world of criminal litigation.

Although it is now hornbook that impossible attempts are …

Criminal Law And Procedure, Aaron J. Campbell

University of Richmond Law Review

This article aims to give a succinct review of notable criminal

law and procedure cases decided by the Supreme Court of Virginia

and the Court of Appeals of Virginia during the past year. Instead

of covering every ruling or rationale in these cases, the article

focuses on the "take-away" of the holdings with the most

precedential value. The article also summarizes noteworthy

changes to criminal law and procedure enacted by the 2017 Virginia

General Assembly.

Attempt, Merger, And Transferred Intent, Nancy Ehrenreich

Brooklyn Law Review

Recent years have seen a dramatic expansion in the transferred-intent doctrine via rulings involving attempt liability. In its basic form, transferred intent allows an intentional actor with bad aim who kills an unintended victim (instead of the intended target) to be punished for murder. Today, some courts allow conviction in such situations not only of transferred intent murder as to the actual victim, but of attempted murder of the intended victim as well. Critics of this expansion (as well as other similar variations) have argued that it distorts the meaning of transferred intent and imposes liability disproportionate to culpability. Little …

The Solution To The Problem Of Outcome Luck: Why Harm Is Just As Punishable As The Wrongful Action That Causes It, Ken Levy

Ken Levy

No abstract provided.

Attempts, In Language And In Law, Mitchell N. Berman

All Faculty Scholarship

On what grounds does the law punish attempted offenses? The dominant answer is that the law punishes attempts to commit an offense precisely because they are attempts (extra-legally), and it is true as a general moral principle that if one should not X, one should not attempt to X. If this is right, then the proper contours of the law of attempts should track the contours of what are attempts (extra-legally). At least to a first approximation, that is, law should track metaphysics. Call this the “Attempt Theory” of attempt liability. Gideon Yaffe’s recent book, "Attempts," is a rigorous and …

Take The Money And Split: The Current Circuit Split And Why Actual Force And Violence Or Intimidation Should Not Be Required Under Section 2113(A) Of The Bank Robbery Act, Kaitlin Flynn

Catholic University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Criminal Law And Procedure, Virginia B. Theisen, Stephen R. Mccullough

University of Richmond Law Review

The authors have endeavored to select from the many cases and bills those that have the most significant practical impact on the daily practice of criminal law in the Commonwealth. Due to space constraints, the authors have stayed away from discussing settled principles, with a focus on the "take away" for a particular case.

A Distributive Theory Of Criminal Law, Aya Gruber

Publications

In criminal law circles, the accepted wisdom is that there are two and only two true justifications of punishment-retributivism and utilitarianism. The multitude of moral claims about punishment may thus be reduced to two propositions: (1) punishment should be imposed because defendants deserve it, and (2) punishment should be imposed because it makes society safer. At the same time, most penal scholars notice the trend in criminal law to de-emphasize intent, centralize harm, and focus on victims, but they largely write off this trend as an irrational return to antiquated notions of vengeance. This Article asserts that there is in …

Criminal Law And Procedure, Michael T. Judge, Stephen R. Mccullough

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Dramas Of Criminal Law: Chapter [?] Of The Symbols Of Governance: Thurman Arnold And Post-Realist Legal Theory, Mark Fenster

Mark Fenster

This essay is a chapter of a book-in-progress on the legal and cultural theory of the legal realist Thurman Arnold, who was prominent as a Yale law professor from 1932 until he joined the Justice Department as head of its antitrust division in 1938. Arnold's work focused on the symbolic role of law in governance, both as a means by which the state gains legitimacy and as a means by which those who oppose a political majority attempt to frame their opposition. As public law that defines and enforces substantive prohibitions, criminal law and procedure allowed Arnold to develop some …

Attempt, Reckless Homicide, And The Design Of Criminal Law, Michael T. Cahill

University of Colorado Law Review

Most American criminal codes create an offense for recklessly killing another person, and nearly all contain a general provision covering any attempt to commit an offense. This article explores the relation between reckless homicide and attempt, which proves more complex than it appears and also turns out to provide a useful starting point for examination of several broader issues in attempt law and criminal law generally. The idea of "attempted reckless homicide" ("ARH") is largely disfavored by legal scholars and almost, but not quite, universally rejected in American law. Part I of the article questions that hostility. The theoretical arguments …

The Solution To The Problem Of Outcome Luck: Why Harm Is Just As Punishable As The Wrongful Action That Causes It, Ken M. Levy

Ken Levy

No abstract provided.

The Solution To The Problem Of Outcome Luck: Why Harm Is Just As Punishable As The Wrongful Action That Causes It, Ken M. Levy

Journal Articles

No abstract provided.

Double Jeopardy

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Justice, Liability, And Blame: Community Views And The Criminal Law, Paul H. Robinson, John M. Darley

All Faculty Scholarship

This book reports empirical studies on 18 different areas of substantive criminal law in which the study results showing ordinary people’s judgments of justice are compared to the governing legal doctrine to highlight points of agreement and disagreement. The book also identifies trends and patterns in agreement and disagreement and discusses the implications for the formulation of criminal law. The chapters include:

Chapter 1. Community Views and the Criminal Law (Introduction; An Overview; Why Community Views Should Matter; Research Methods)

Chapter 2. Doctrines of Criminalization: What Conduct Should Be Criminal? (Objective Requirements of Attempt (Study 1); Creating a Criminal Risk …

A New Attempt At Defining An Old Maxim, Marvin B. Steinberg

University of Baltimore Law Forum

No abstract provided.

Joint Criminal Participation: Establishing Responsibility, Abandonment, Paul Marcus

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

The Moment Of Silence In Public Schools: Valid Educational Activity Or Attempt To Breach The Church-State Wall?, James A. Helfman

University of Baltimore Law Forum

No abstract provided.

Criminal Law Revision In Kentucky: Part Ii—Inchoate Crimes, Robert G. Lawson

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

Kentucky, like other jurisdictions, imposes criminal sanctions for conduct that is designed to achieve a criminal result but fails for some reason to accomplish its anti-social objective. Such conduct is punishable, if at all, as criminal attempt, criminal conspiracy, or criminal solicitation. In looking toward revision, attention should be focused initially upon the objectives to be promoted by classifying unsuccessful, anti-social conduct as criminal behavior.

First: There is obviously need for a firm basis for the intervention of law enforcement agencies to prevent a person dedicated to the commission of a crime from consummating it. In determining that basis, attention …