Would You Convict?: Seventeen Cases That Challenged the Law
329Would You Convict?: Seventeen Cases That Challenged the Law
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Overview
A police trooper inspects a car during a routine traffic stop and finds a vast cache of weapons, complete with automatic rifles, thousands of rounds of ammunition, and black ski masks-a veritable bank robber's kit. Should the men in the car be charged? If so, with what?
A son neglects to care for his elderly mother, whose emaciated form is discovered shortly before she dies a painful death. Is the son's neglect punishable, and if so how?
A career con man writes one bad check too many and is sentenced to life in prison-for a check in the amount of $129.75. Is this just?
A thief steals a backpack, only to find it contains a terrorist bomb. He alerts the police and saves lives, transforming himself from petty criminal to national hero.
These are just a few of the many provocative cases that Paul Robinson presents and unravels in Would You Convict?
Judging crimes and meting out punishment has long been an informal national pasttime. High-profile crimes or particularly brutal ones invariably prompt endless debate, in newspapers, on television, in coffee shops, and on front porches. Our very nature inclines us to be armchair judges, freely waving our metaphorical gavels and opining as to the innocence or guilt-and suitable punishment-of alleged criminals.
Confronting this impulse, Paul Robinson here presents a series of unusual episodes that not only challenged the law, but that defy a facile or knee-jerk verdict. Narrating the facts in compelling, but detached detail, Robinson invites readers to sentence the transgressor (or not), before revealing the final outcome of the case.
The cases described in Would You Convict? engage, shock, even repel. Without a doubt, they will challenge you and your belief system. And the way in which juries and judges have resolved them will almost certainly surprise you.
Product Details
ISBN-13: | 9780814775318 |
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Publisher: | New York University Press |
Publication date: | 11/01/2001 |
Edition description: | New Edition |
Pages: | 329 |
Sales rank: | 241,173 |
Product dimensions: | 6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.65(d) |
About the Author
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments | xi | |
Prologue | 1 | |
1 | Punishing Intent, Harm, or Dangerousness? | 3 |
Are Evil Intentions a Crime? | 3 | |
People's Intuitions of Justice | 8 | |
The Law's Rules | 9 | |
Background | 9 | |
The Aftermath | 11 | |
Attempt versus the Complete Offense: The Significance of Resulting Harm | 19 | |
Can Father and Daughter Kill the Same Man Twice? | 20 | |
People's Intuitions of Justice | 21 | |
More Facts | 22 | |
People's Intuitions of Justice | 23 | |
The Law's Rules | 25 | |
The Aftermath | 25 | |
Murder versus Attempted Murder: The Significance of Resulting Harm | 27 | |
The Final Outcome | 28 | |
The Requirements of Criminal Liability | 28 | |
Life Imprisonment for Air Conditioning Fraud? | 28 | |
People's Intuitions of Justice | 31 | |
Trial and Sentence | 32 | |
Punishing Dangerousness: Cloaking Preventive Detention as Criminal Justice | 32 | |
The Appeal | 37 | |
The Cost of Undercutting the Criminal Law's Moral Credibility | 37 | |
The Final Outcome | 40 | |
Segregating Preventive Detention from Criminal Justice | 41 | |
2 | Knowing the Law's Commands | 44 |
The Congenial Cadaver | 44 | |
People's Intuitions of Justice | 50 | |
The Legality Principle and Its Rationales | 50 | |
The Aftermath | 52 | |
Today | 53 | |
When Can an Officer Carry a Gun? | 54 | |
People's Intuitions of Justice | 56 | |
The Law | 57 | |
At Trial | 73 | |
At Trial Again: Ignorance or Mistake of Law Is No Excuse | 74 | |
Acquitting the Bakers but Convicting the Marreros? | 74 | |
Communicating the Criminal Law's Commands | 76 | |
The Outcome | 76 | |
Legality in Omission Offenses | 78 | |
Neglecting Mom ... to Death | 78 | |
People's Intuitions of Justice | 81 | |
The Charge | 81 | |
The Law's Reluctance to Impose Duties | 82 | |
The Outcome | 83 | |
Today | 84 | |
Striking the Proper Balance between Legality and Justice | 84 | |
Finders Keepers, Losers Weepers? | 85 | |
The Law | 87 | |
Ignorance of Law an Excuse? | 88 | |
People's Intuitions of Justice | 89 | |
The Aftermath | 90 | |
The Problem of Discretion | 90 | |
Same Facts, Different Perspective | 91 | |
The Virtues of Legality | 95 | |
Finishing the Story | 96 | |
3 | Can Committing a Crime Be Doing the Right Thing? | 97 |
Escaping the Prisoners | 97 | |
The Law's Rules | 103 | |
The Trial and Sentence | 104 | |
The Defense's Problems | 105 | |
On Appeal | 106 | |
People's Intuitions of Justice | 107 | |
The Green Case under the Criminal Law of Other States | 107 | |
The Final Outcome | 109 | |
Killing for Apples | 110 | |
The Law's Rule | 113 | |
The Trial and Appeal | 114 | |
People's Intuitions of Justice | 115 | |
Another Look at Ignorance of the Law | 116 | |
The Right Deed for the Wrong Reason | 123 | |
Disagreement in the Law | 125 | |
People's Intuitions of Justice | 127 | |
The Outcome | 127 | |
A Terrorist's Right to Resist the Thief? | 129 | |
Today | 130 | |
4 | Can Doing the Wrong Thing Ever Be Blameless? | 132 |
Loving, Killing Parents | 132 | |
At Trial | 137 | |
The Law's Challenge | 138 | |
The Outcome | 140 | |
People's Intuitions of Justice | 140 | |
Adjudicating Blameworthiness versus Announcing Rules of Conduct | 141 | |
The Sentence | 142 | |
Killing a Sleeping Abuser | 142 | |
The Law's Challenge, Again | 147 | |
The Aftermath | 148 | |
Battered Spouse Syndrome | 149 | |
The Trial | 150 | |
The Matters Relevant to Justice | 150 | |
The Appeal | 151 | |
The All-or-Nothing Disagreement | 152 | |
On Remand | 153 | |
People's Intuitions of Justice | 153 | |
The Law's Unmet Challenge | 154 | |
The Pedophile Within | 155 | |
The Law's Rules | 159 | |
People's Intuitions of Justice | 162 | |
The Trial | 162 | |
On Appeal | 163 | |
The American View | 164 | |
Today | 166 | |
Picking Clean Drunks | 166 | |
The Law's Rules | 170 | |
People's Intuitions of Justice | 171 | |
Legal Conflict over the Reno Decoy Operation | 171 | |
The Peculiar Entrapment Defense | 173 | |
The Outcome | 174 | |
Legal Disagreements over Entrapment | 175 | |
The Aftermath | 176 | |
Who Will Explain to Kingston Why Hawkins Gets Off but He Goes to Jail? | 176 | |
5 | Martyrs for Our Safety | 178 |
A Farm Boy's Treason? | 179 | |
The Power of Coercive Indoctrination | 181 | |
Richard's Return | 183 | |
People's Intuitions of Justice | 185 | |
The Law's Rules | 186 | |
Finishing the Story | 189 | |
Of Hippies and Bread Trucks: The Abused Learns to Abuse | 191 | |
Alex Cabarga and Richard Tenneson | 196 | |
People's Intuitions of Justice | 198 | |
The Trial and Sentence | 199 | |
The Problem of Discretion | 199 | |
Desert versus Dangerousness | 201 | |
Today | 204 | |
Growing Up Gang: The Short, Violent Life of Robert Sandifer | 206 | |
People's Intuitions of Justice | 209 | |
Robert Sandifer and Alex Cabarga | 210 | |
The Aftermath | 213 | |
Desert versus Dangerousness, Again | 215 | |
Epilogue | 217 | |
Appendix | Governing Law, Then and Now | 219 |
Index | 321 | |
About the Author | 328 |
What People are Saying About This
"Paul Robinson, one of our most distinguished scholars for criminal law, has found a novel mode for both communicating the law to lay people and for integrating popular sentiments into the process of law reform. Everyone interested in the problems of moral and criminal responsibility should read this book, formulate a view about the issues, and discuss the problems with others. Make your view heard and the law will become more just!"
-George P. Fletcher,Cardozo Professor of Jurisprudence, Columbia University, and author of A Crime of Self-Defense: Bernhard Goetz and the Law on Trial
"Paul Robinson's writings have established him as the preeminent authority on what American criminal law is and on what the American public thinks of its criminal law. Would You Convict? Masterfully combines his two fields of expertise. Legal scholars, law students, and ordinary citizens will all benefit immensely from this work."
-Dan M. Kahan,Professor of Law, Yale University
"Fascinating reading."
-Library Journal,
"In this captivating book, Paul Robinson brings to life the central problems of the criminal law in a most unusual way. He confronts his readers with a cross-section of the most perplexing cases the law has to contend with (robbers armed to the hilt for a 'job', but arrested long before they have had a chance to decide what that 'job' is going to be; or a killer whose victim ends up dying in a way the killer never foresaw) and tries to get them to 'solve' the case before revealing how the law has actually dealt with it. Then, based on his earlier pioneering research into popular perceptions of justice, he is able to tell readers how their peers would have judged the same case. It's a book that should appeal to the academic, the student and the general reader alike."
-Leo Katz,author of Ill-Gotten Gains: Evasion, Fraud, and Kindred Puzzles of the Law
"Anyone interested in law will enjoy this book. . . . Highly recommended."
-Choice