Legal Studies Commons^™

Aspects Of Deconstruction: Refuting Indeterminacy With One Bold Thought, Anthony D'Amato

Faculty Working Papers

Deconstruction has already happened on the Supreme Court. Not only can no member of the Court really believe that "the law" (self-invented by the very Court it is supposed to govern!) can constrain the result in any individual case, but its members have also convinced themselves that they have no time to be concerned with dispensing justice to the parties. The justificatory legal language used in judicial opinions is not what our law teachers told us it was. The justificatory legal language is not provided to explain—much less constrain—the result in the case. Rather, it is a mode of couching …

Is International Law Part Of Natural Law?, Anthony D'Amato

Faculty Working Papers

The affinity of international law to natural law goes back a long way to the classic writers of international law. "Natural law" is the method of dispute resolution based on a conscious attempt to perpetuate past similarities in dispute resolution. "International law" has a deep affinity to this natural law method, for it consists of those practices that have "worked" in inter-nation conflict resolution.

Can Any Legal Theory Constrain Any Judicial Decision?, Anthony D'Amato

Faculty Working Papers

A growing number of legal scholars have recently revived the American legal realist thesis that legal theory does not dictate the result in any particular case because legal theory itself is indeterminate. A more radical group has added that theory can never constrain judicial practice. I will present a spectrum of types of legal theories to demonstrate that the position of the more radical group of writers is correct—that legal theory is inherently incapable of identifying which party should win any given case.

Pragmatic Indeterminacy, Anthony D'Amato

Faculty Working Papers

If, as a result of taking Indeterminacy seriously, we revolutionize the way we teach law and the way we select judges, then we will also revolutionize the way cases are litigated (because the new judges will expect to hear a different kind of argumentation) and the way people order their lives in anticipation of the way their disputes will be decided by these new judges.

There Is No Norm Of Intervention Or Non-Intervention In International Law, Anthony D'Amato

Faculty Working Papers

Comments on Prof. Jianming Shen's position that humanitarian intervention is unlawful under international law and that there is a principle of non-intervention in international law that is so powerful that it amounts to a jus cogens prohibition.

Legal Realism Explains Nothing, Anthony D'Amato

Faculty Working Papers

I argue that American legal realism as derived from Oliver Wendell Holmes's prediction theory of law was misinterpreted, and that a deeper examination of law-as-prediction might help to reduce the pathology of judicial lawmaking that has been the unfortunate consequence of legal realism.

The Speluncean Explorers--Further Proceedings, Anthony D'Amato

Faculty Working Papers

Lon L. Fuller's The Case of the Speluncean Explorers is a classic in jurisprudence. The case presents five judicial opinions which clash with each other and produce for the reader an exhilarating excursion into fundamental theories of law and the state and the role of courts vis-i-vis legislatures and executives. Though the issues articulated by Fuller are timeless, the past thirty years in jurisprudential scholarship have produced at least one major new vantage point—the "rights thesis".

The Limits Of Legal Realism, Anthony D'Amato

Faculty Working Papers

This article will address some criticisms of legal realism, primarily those of H.L.A. Hart, that have been unanswered in the literature and have appeared to discredit the realist approach to law. The article will also articulate what I believe to be more difficult problems with legal realism.

Legal Uncertainty, Anthony D'Amato

Faculty Working Papers

Legal certainty decreases over time. Rules and principles of law become more and more uncertain in content and in application because legal systems are biased in favor of unravelling those rules and principles. In this article I attempt to show what these biases are, and why commentators who have argued that the law tends toward certainty are wrong, then describe various attempts which have been made at restoring certainty, and why these attempts have generally not worked. My conclusion is that these proposals are at best holding actions, and that the tendency toward increasing uncertainty in the law is inexorable.

Is Equality A Totally Empty Idea?, Anthony D'Amato

Faculty Working Papers

Comments on Westen article The Empty Idea of Equality. The only way we know what direction to move in making reductions and increases in burdens is to have a concept of equality in mind. The only way we can know that one burden is 'great' and another burden is 'considerably lesser,' to use the words in Westen's standard, is to compare the burdens. But comparison presupposes a measure of equality, for we cannot know that one burden is greater than another unless we first have a concept of when the two burdens are equal. Westen's standard, therefore, is logically posterior …

Cartoon Violence: A Comparison Of Past And Present, Elizabeth Cameron Macias

Theses Digitization Project

This study examined four cartoons in order to determine the extent of the violence, type of violence, and the context of violence in both dated and modern cartoons. To achieve this goal a content analysis of 'The Flintstones', 'The Jetsons', 'The Simpsons' and "Family Guy' was performed. These shows were chosen based on their popularity, classification as family programming, and the influence they have had on American culture.

Prison Blockbusters: Relationships Between Prison Cinema And Student Perceptions, Jeremy Scott Mcqueen

Online Theses and Dissertations

This study examined college students' perceptions, as they relate to prison cinema. It also discussed and analyzed reoccurring themes in prison cinema that perpetuates the prison culture in the United States. Specifically, this research addressed the following research question: How is exposure to prison cinema related to student perceptions of prisons, prisoners, and prison staff? By asking this question and analyzing the responses given by students, this study hopes to contribute to improved understanding of how popular cinema shapes the perceptions of prison culture in the United States.

The researcher utilized both quantitative and qualitative methods in gathering research data …

Ua12/8 Annual Report, Wku Police

WKU Administration Documents

A statement of current campus policies regarding procedures for students and others to report criminal actions or other emergencies occurring on campus and policies concerning the institution's response to such reports.

"The Urban Praetor's Tribunal" In Spaces Of Justice In The Roman World, Eric Kondratieff

History Faculty Publications

"Book abstract: Despite the crucial role played by both law and architecture in Roman culture, the Romans never developed a type of building that was specifically and exclusively reserved for the administration of justice: courthouses did not exist in Roman antiquity. The present volume addresses this paradox by investigating the spatial settings of Roman judicial practices from a variety of perspectives. Scholars of law, topography, architecture, political history, and literature concur in putting Roman judicature back into its concrete physical context, exploring how the exercise of law interacted with the environment in which it took place, and how the spaces …

Pesach N. Rubenstein Cheats The Hangman: A Case Study Of Punishment And The Death Penalty At Brooklyn’S Raymond Street Jail, Philip M. Stinson

Criminal Justice Faculty Publications

This paper tells the story of Pesach Rubenstein and how he cheated the hangman in 1876. Rubenstein was charged, tried, and convicted in Kings County, New York, for the 1875 murder of his 19 year-old cousin, Sarah Alexander. The Rubenstein case is noteworthy in that it received unprecedented media attention in the 1870s, involved the use of rudimentary forensic evidence at the trial, and divided the community on issues of religion, ethnicity, immigration (the victim and defendant were recent Jewish immigrants from Poland), and imposition of the death penalty. Using a case study approach to analyze the trial transcript, newspaper …

Practitioner Perceptions Of Juvenile Transfer In Pennsylvania, David Myers, Daniel Lee, Dennis Giever, Jay Gilliam

Criminal Justice Faculty Publications

Consistent with virtually all other states in the nation, in the mid-1990s legislation was enacted in Pennsylvania to address increasing concerns about serious and violent juvenile offending. This legislation included provisions for facilitating the transfer of violent juvenile offenders to adult criminal court. The current study examines contemporary practitioner perceptions of juvenile transfer to adult court, with regard to the number of juveniles transferred, the effectiveness of this practice, and the appropriate minimum age for transfer to occur. Utilizing statewide survey data, comparisons are made between juvenile court judges, probation officers, prosecutors, and public defenders, and other predictors are assessed. …

Ua12/8 Wku Police - Campus Security Report, 2008, Wku Police

WKU Administration Documents

This report is designed to provide students, potential students, parents, facility and staff with crime statistics and information on university services and crime prevention programs. These programs are designed to help inform our campus communities about safety practices that will help you reduce the risk of being a crime victim. I feel hat these lessons can give people information that they can carry with them beyond college and will help keep them safe for the rest of their lives.

The Torture Of Alleged Terrorists Necessary For Public Safety Or A Criminal Act?, Michaela Clark

Undergraduate Review

Torture is defined in a variety of ways by many different sources. According to the World Medical Association’s (WMA) Declaration of Tokyo, torture is defined as, “the deliberate, systematic, or wanton infliction of physical or mental suffering by one or more people acting alone or on the orders of any authority, to force another person to yield information, to make a confession, or for any other reason.” The Declaration of Tokyo was passed in 1975 and updated many times, most recently in 2006. This is a landmark document that has been used as a model for other medical statutes. The …

The Myth Of The Female Sex Offender, Chelsea Horrocks

Undergraduate Review

More than 300,000 women and nearly 100,000 men were forcibly raped in 1995 (Tjaden & Thoennes, 2006). The National Violence Against Women (NVAW) Survey, the last nationwide survey on rape, which had 8,000 male and 8,000 female participants, found that one of every six women and one of every thirty-three men is raped at some point in their lifetime. Thirty-two percent of the women and sixteen percent of the men were injured during their rape. In another nationwide telephone survey, twenty-two percent of 3,000 adults reported being sexually abused (Vandiver, 2002).

A Review Of Rape Statistics, Theories, And Policy, Gary Lowell

Undergraduate Review

Rape is defined in the laws of Massachusetts as “[s]exual intercourse or unnatural sexual intercourse by a person with another person who is compelled to submit by force and against his will or by threat of bodily injury” (Mass. Gen. Laws Ann. ch. 277, § 39, 2009). Although traditional definitions of rape have been that only a female can be raped and only a male can rape, “courts have held that the rape statutes in their jurisdictions are gender-neutral and apply equally to perpetrators of either sex” (Lynton, 1995). Still, since male on female rape is more prevalent (see Gonzales, …