Legal Theory Commons^™

Justification And Excuse, Law And Morality, Mitchell N. Berman

All Faculty Scholarship

Anglo-American theorists of the criminal law have concentrated on-one is tempted to say "obsessed over"-the distinction between justification and excuse for a good quarter-century and the scholarly attention has purchased unusually widespread agreement. Justification defenses are said to apply when the actor's conduct was not morally wrongful; excuse defenses lie when the actor did engage in wrongful conduct but is not morally blameworthy. A near consensus thus achieved, theorists have turned to subordinate matters, joining issue most notably on the question of whether justifications are "subjective"-turning upon the actor's reasons for acting-or "objective"-involving only facts independent of the actor's beliefs …

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 …