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Full-Text Articles in Law
Police Killings As Felony Murder, Guyora Binder, Ekow Yankah
Police Killings As Felony Murder, Guyora Binder, Ekow Yankah
Journal Articles
The widely applauded conviction of officer Derek Chauvin for the murder of George Floyd employedthe widely criticized felony murder rule. Should we use felony murder as a tool to check discriminatory and violent policing? The authors object that felony murder—although perhaps the only murder charge available for this killing under Minnesota law—understated Chauvin’s culpability and thereby inadequately denounced his crime. They show that further opportunities to prosecute police for felony murder are quite limited. Further, a substantial minority of states impose felony murder liability for any death proximately caused by a felony, even if the actual killer was a police …
The Puzzle Of Inciting Suicide, Guyora Binder, Luis E. Chiesa
The Puzzle Of Inciting Suicide, Guyora Binder, Luis E. Chiesa
Journal Articles
In 2017, a Massachusetts court convicted Michelle Carter of manslaughter for encouraging the suicide of Conrad Roy by text message, but imposed a sentence of only 15 months. The conviction was unprecedented in imposing homicide liability for verbal encouragement of apparently voluntary suicide. Yet if Carter killed, her purpose that Roy die arguably merited liability for murder and a much longer sentence. This Article argues that our ambivalence about whether and how much to punish Carter reflects suicide’s dual character as both a harm to be prevented and a choice to be respected. As such, the Carter case requires us …
Penal Incapacitation: A Situationist Critique, Guyora Binder, Ben Notterman
Penal Incapacitation: A Situationist Critique, Guyora Binder, Ben Notterman
Journal Articles
Incapacitation of offenders has been an influential goal of criminal justice policy during the era of mass incarceration. The Supreme Court’s Eighth Amendment Jurisprudence has accepted incapacitation alone as a justifying purpose for recidivist sentencing enhancements. Yet recent Eighth Amendment decisions have required that severe sentences of incarceration be justified by reference to all purposes of punishment cumulatively, and have tested claims of incapacitative benefits against empirical evidence. This Article critiques penal incapacitation as both theoretically and empirically flawed. Incapacitation theory underestimates situational factors contributing to crime, over-attributes dangerousness to individuals, and fails to account for crime committed in prison. …
What Is Criminal Law About?, Guyora Binder, Robert Weisberg
What Is Criminal Law About?, Guyora Binder, Robert Weisberg
Journal Articles
In a recent critique, Jens Ohlin faults contemporary criminal law textbooks for emphasizing philosophy, history and social science at the expense of doctrinal training. In this response, we argue that the political importance of criminal law justifies including reflection about the justice of punishment in the professional education of lawyers. First, we argue that both understanding and evaluating criminal law doctrine requires consideration of political philosophy, legal history, and empirical research. Second, we argue that the indeterminacy of criminal law doctrine on some fundamental questions means that criminal lawyers often cannot avoid invoking normative theory in fashioning legal arguments. Finally, …
Representing Nazism: Advocacy And Identity At The Trial Of Klaus Barbie, Guyora Binder
Representing Nazism: Advocacy And Identity At The Trial Of Klaus Barbie, Guyora Binder
Journal Articles
Noting the enormous media interest in the war crimes trial of Klaus Barbie, and the surprising emphasis of this coverage on its cultural significance, this essay provides a literary reading of the trial as a contest over identity. More specifically, it treats the trial and its coverage as a struggle among competing groups - including the French state, various strands of the French left, the French right, resistance veterans, holocaust survivors, Zionists, Arabs, anti-colonialists - for the power to represent Nazism. All of these groups sought to define Nazism so as to claim a privileged identity as essential victims or …