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What Is And Is Not Pathological In Criminal Law, Kyron Huigens
What Is And Is Not Pathological In Criminal Law, Kyron Huigens
Michigan Law Review
In a recent article in this law review, William J. Stuntz argues that criminal law in the United States suffers from a political pathology. The incentives of legislators are such that the notorious overcriminalization of American society is deep as well as broad. That is, not only are remote corners of life subject to criminal penalties - such things as tearing tags off mattresses and overworking animals - but now crimes are defined with the express design of easing the way to conviction. Is proof of a tangible harm an obstacle to using wire and mail fraud statutes to prosecute …
The Progress Of Passion, Kathryn Abrams
The Progress Of Passion, Kathryn Abrams
Michigan Law Review
Like an abandoned fortress, the dichotomy between reason and the passions casts a long shadow over the domain of legal thought. Beset by forces from legal realism to feminist epistemology, this dichotomy no longer holds sovereign sway. Yet its structure helps to articulate the boundaries of the legal field; efforts to move in and around it infuse present thinking with the echoes of a conceptually distinct past. Early critics of the dichotomy may unwittingly have prolonged its influence through the frontal character of their attacks. By challenging a strong distinction between emotion and reason, critics kept it, paradoxically, before legal …
Criminal Law - Insane Persons - Influence Of Mental Illness On The Parole Return Process, David G. Davies S.Ed., John H. Hess M.D.
Criminal Law - Insane Persons - Influence Of Mental Illness On The Parole Return Process, David G. Davies S.Ed., John H. Hess M.D.
Michigan Law Review
Defendants in the criminal process are divided into rigidly exclusive categories of mental health. The competent to stand trial are first separated from the incompetent. Then the competent are divided on the basis of their mental state at the time of their acts between the "sane" and the "insane." As long as these rigid categories are administered in an adversary trial system, some misdirection of victims of serious mental illness into the penal system is almost inevitable. Even where mental illness might otherwise prevent conviction, those accused of non-capital felonies are not likely to raise the question, and few courts …