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Full-Text Articles in Law
The Punishment Should Fit The Crime—Not The Prior Convictions Of The Person That Committed The Crime: An Argument For Less Impact Being Accorded To Previous Convictions, Mirko Bagaric
San Diego Law Review
The seriousness of the offense is the main consideration that should determine the severity of criminal punishment. This cardinal sentencing principle is undermined by the reality that often the criminal history of the offender is the most decisive sentencing consideration. Recidivists are frequently sent to imprisonment for long periods for crimes, which, when committed by first-time offenders, are dealt with by a bond, probation, or a fine. This makes sentencing more about an individual’s profile than the harm caused by the offender and has contributed to a large increase in prison numbers. Intuitively, it feels right to punish repeat offenders …
Murder Mitigation In The Fifty-Two American Jurisdictions: A Case Study In Doctrinal Interrelation Analysis, Paul H. Robinson
Murder Mitigation In The Fifty-Two American Jurisdictions: A Case Study In Doctrinal Interrelation Analysis, Paul H. Robinson
All Faculty Scholarship
The essay surveys the law in the fifty-two American jurisdictions with regard to the three doctrines that commonly provide a mitigation or defense to murder liability: common law provocation and its modern counterpart, extreme mental or emotional disturbance; the so-called diminished capacity defense and its modern counterpart, mental illness negating an offense element; and the insanity defense. The essay then examines the patterns among the jurisdictions in the particular formulation they adopt for the three doctrines, and the combinations in which those formulations commonly appear in different jurisdictions. After this review, the essay steps back to see what kinds of …
Catalogs, Gideon Parchomovsky, Alex Stein
Catalogs, Gideon Parchomovsky, Alex Stein
All Faculty Scholarship
It is a virtual axiom in the world of law that legal norms come in two prototypes: rules and standards. The accepted lore suggests that rules should be formulated to regulate recurrent and frequent behaviors, whose contours can be defined with sufficient precision. Standards, by contrast, should be employed to address complex, variegated, behaviors that require the weighing of multiple variables. Rules rely on an ex ante perspective and are therefore considered the domain of the legislator; standards embody a preference for ex post, ad-hoc, analysis and are therefore considered the domain of courts. The rules/standards dichotomy has become a …
Empirical Desert, Individual Prevention, And Limiting Retributivism: A Reply, Paul H. Robinson, Joshua Samuel Barton, Matthew J. Lister
Empirical Desert, Individual Prevention, And Limiting Retributivism: A Reply, Paul H. Robinson, Joshua Samuel Barton, Matthew J. Lister
All Faculty Scholarship
A number of articles and empirical studies over the past decade, most by Paul Robinson and co-authors, have suggested a relationship between the extent of the criminal law's reputation for being just in its distribution of criminal liability and punishment in the eyes of the community – its "moral credibility" – and its ability to gain that community's deference and compliance through a variety of mechanisms that enhance its crime-control effectiveness. This has led to proposals to have criminal liability and punishment rules reflect lay intuitions of justice – "empirical desert" – as a means of enhancing the system's moral …
“White Collar” Crimes, Samuel W. Buell
“White Collar” Crimes, Samuel W. Buell
Faculty Scholarship
In addition to serving as a précis of the subject of ‘white collar’ crime, this chapter does three things. First, it deals with white collar crime’s longstanding definitional problem, rejecting several standard approaches and arguing that the category is most usefully understood according to the conceptual legal problem these offenses generate. White collar crimes, much more than other offenses, are committed in social settings in which undesirable behaviors are embedded within socially welcome conduct. Thus they are difficult to set apart and extract through clearly specified ex ante rules of law. Second, the chapter illustrates this definitional claim, and discusses …
Commentary: Reflections On Remorse, Stephen J. Morse
Commentary: Reflections On Remorse, Stephen J. Morse
All Faculty Scholarship
This commentary on Zhong et al. begins by addressing the definition of remorse. It then primarily focuses on the relation between remorse and various justifications for punishment commonly accepted in Anglo-American jurisprudence and suggests that remorse cannot be used in a principled way in sentencing. It examines whether forensic psychiatrists have special expertise in evaluating remorse and concludes that they do not. The final section is a pessimistic meditation on sentencing disparities, which is a striking finding of Zhong et al.
Perceptions And Occurrences Of Relationship Abuse And Sexual Assault, Jessica Parenteau
Perceptions And Occurrences Of Relationship Abuse And Sexual Assault, Jessica Parenteau
Honors Projects
Previous research illustrates that college age students experience relationship abuse and sexual assault. I test lifestyle-routine activities theory to determine how college students perceive non-stranger relationship abuse and/or sexual assault and if both are occurring on a college campus, off a college campus, or through technology, including social media. Like previous studies, this one found that alcohol played a role in victimization. Also, more male participants than female participants were likely to be harassed through social media than in actual physical locations, such as at a bar or a private party. Findings from this study show that both women and …