Rights

2020 ◽  
pp. 72-117
Author(s):  
Stephen P. Garvey
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Supreme Court ◽  
Reasonable Doubt ◽  
Mens Rea ◽  
Court Cases ◽  
Criminal Statute ◽  
Democratic Authority ◽  
Actus Reus ◽  
Subsequent Discussion ◽  
The Law

This chapter uses two well-known Supreme Court cases—Powell v. Texas and Morissette v. United States—to frame the subsequent discussion. It offers the reasonable doubt test as a way for each citizen to decide for himself if a proposed limit on democratic authority is a legitimate limit. It introduces formulations of the actus reus and mens rea meant to pass that test, such that they can serve as immunity rights limiting the authority of a democratic states to ascribe guilt to those accused of crimes. It distinguishes actus reus and mens rea as they are conventionally understood (as tools lawyers use to analyze and dissect the elements of criminal statute) from how they will be understood here (as immunity rights). It explains how actus reus and mens rea so understood mean one thing when applied to defendants who realized they were committing a crime and another thing when they didn’t realize they were committing a crime. It then details how mens rea is ultimately grounded in an ill or indifferent will—a lack of sufficient concern for the law and its ends—and proposes a test (the Jekyll test) for sorting ill and indifferent wills from law-abiding ones.

Ignorance

2020 ◽  
pp. 162-206
Author(s):  
Stephen P. Garvey
Keyword(s):  
Supreme Court ◽  
Mens Rea ◽  
Court Case ◽  
Actus Reus ◽  
Supreme Court Case ◽  
The Law ◽  
The City ◽  
Convicted Felons ◽  
Hard Cases

This chapter begins Lambert v. California, a 1957 U.S. Supreme Court case involving a woman charged with a crime she didn’t realize she was committing. Lambert violated a Los Angles ordinance making it a crime for convicted felons to remain in the city for more than five days without registering with the police, but she was unaware of her duty to register. It describes in more detail what the actus reus and mens rea requirements entail when applied to a defendant who didn’t realize she was committing a crime. As a preface to that effort it discusses and criticizes the maxim that ignorance of the law is no excuse. It then introduces a test, in relation to actus reus, for determining if a defendant who didn’t realize she was committing a crime could have realized she was (the Lex test) and then compares the actus reus requirement to the existing defense of insanity. It thereafter turns to a discussion of the mens rea requirement as applied to ignorant defendants, analyzing some hard cases, and then concludes with a discussion of tracing.

The Right of Appeal in Naturalization Cases in the Federal Courts

1927 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 40-52 ◽  
Author(s):  
Henry B. Hazard
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Supreme Court ◽  
The United States ◽  
Federal Courts ◽  
Court Cases ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
The Law ◽  
The Right

The Supreme Court of the United States, by Mr. Justice Brandeis, recently handed down its decision in Tutun v. United States, and Neuberger v. United States. This is the latest of the important Supreme Court cases determining the law of naturalization, of citizenship, and of expatriation. During the past fifteen years they have comprised Johannessen v. United States, Mansour v. United States, Luria v. United States, Maibaum v. United States, Mackenzie v. Hare, United States v. Ginsberg, United States v. Ness, United States v. Morena, Ozawa v. United States, Yamashita v. Hinkle, United States v. Thind, Kaplan v. Tod, and Toyota v. United States.

Conclusion

2020 ◽  
pp. 304-310
Author(s):  
Stephen P. Garvey
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Social Institutions ◽  
The United States ◽  
The State ◽  
Mens Rea ◽  
State Punishment ◽  
Democratic Authority ◽  
Actus Reus

This concluding chapter reflects on what has gone before. The idea that a democratic state’s reason for being is to authoritatively resolve disagreements among free and equal citizens over the demands of justice suggests that peace, not justice, is the first virtue of social institutions, including the institutions through which the state imposes punishment. It then ponders, in light of the actus reus and mens rea requirements, the legitimacy of state punishment as currently administered in the various jurisdictions of the United States. Judged only in terms of the actus reus and mens rea requirements, it seems those jurisdictions earn passing grades. Existing rules and doctrines, enacted in the exercise of democratic authority, appear to keep the state’s power to ascribe guilt largely within the bounds of legitimacy. One might nonetheless think those jurisdictions illegitimately criminalize forms of conduct they have no authority to criminalize, or that they illegitimately impose punishments so severe as to exceed their authority. These questions are left for others to address.

Progress of the Law in the United States Supreme Court 1929-1930

1930 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 209
Author(s):  
Charles Kerr ◽  
George Hankin ◽  
Charlotte A. Hankin
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Supreme Court ◽  
United States Supreme Court ◽  
The United States ◽  
United States Supreme ◽  
The Law

EXPRESSIVE MEANING, RACE, AND THE LAW:

Legal Theory ◽  
1999 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 75-99
Author(s):  
Andrew Altman
Keyword(s):  
Supreme Court ◽  
Legal Reasoning ◽  
Court Cases ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
Expressive Meaning ◽  
The Law

Recently, legal and social thinkers have turned to the idea that actions possess a nonlinguistic meaning, called “expressive meaning.” In this article I examine the idea of expressive meaning and its role in legal reasoning. My focus is on a series of U.S. Supreme Court cases involving constitutional challenges to election districts drawn on the basis of race. The Supreme Court used the idea of expressive meaning in striking down the districts. After explicating the idea of expressive meaning, I explain and criticize the Court’s reasoning. I distinguish the approach of Justices Thomas and Scalia, who hold that all uses of race in districting do constitutional harm, from that of Justice O’Connor, who distinguishes uses of race that do constitutional harm from those that do not. I contend that Justice O’Connor is right to make the distinction but she draws the line using a questionable standard. A more defensible standard would be more accommodating to the districts that the Court invalidated.

scholarly journals “A World of Steel-Eyed Death”: An Empirical Evaluation of the Failure of the Strickland Standard to Ensure Adequate Counsel to Defendants with Mental Disabilities Facing the Death Penalty

2020 ◽  
pp. 261
Author(s):  
Michael Perlin ◽  
Tailia Roitberg Harmon ◽  
Sarah Chatt
Keyword(s):  
Supreme Court ◽  
Death Penalty ◽  
Empirical Evaluation ◽  
Therapeutic Jurisprudence ◽  
Full Length ◽  
Court Cases ◽  
Mental Disabilities ◽  
Legal Representation ◽  
Entire Area ◽  
The Law

First, we discuss the background of the development of counsel adequacy in death penalty cases. Next, we look carefully at Strickland, and the subsequent Supreme Court cases that appear—on the surface—to bolster it in this context. We then consider multiple jurisprudential filters that we believe must be taken seriously if this area of the law is to be given any authentic meaning. Next, we will examine and interpret the data that we have developed. Finally, we will look at this entire area of law through the filter of therapeutic jurisprudence, and then explain why and how the charade of “adequacy of counsel law” fails miserably to meet the standards of this important school of thought. Our title comes, in part, from Bob Dylan’s song, Shelter from the Storm. As one of the authors (MLP) has previously noted in another article drawing on that song’s lyrics, “[i]n a full-length book about that album, the critics Andy Gill and Kevin Odegard characterize the song as depicting a ‘mythic image of torment.’” The defendants in the cases we write about—by and large, defendants with profound mental disabilities who face the death penalty in large part because of the inadequacy of their legal representation— confront (and are defeated by) a world of ‘steel-eyed death.’ We hope that this Article helps change these realities.

The basic issue surrounds whether the law has been broken. We have been told Mary has been charged with theft under s 1 of the Theft Act. We are to assume that the three statements provided containing all of the information in this scenario have been produced just for us to read and work on. For the purposes of this exercise we will assume that these statements were produced in ways not calling into doubt their admissibility or credibility. This means therefore that we only have to concentrate on their probative value. (What do they prove?) The seven point approach of Twining and Miers will be used. 1 Standpoint: the standpoint of the Chart is that of the author of this book demonstrating the Wigmore Chart Method for the purposes of demonstrating the method and argument construction. 2 Stages 2, 3 and 4: relate to setting up the propositions and then key listing and charting. The impossibility of approaching each task in an isolated way is immediately perceived as we are going to work from statements. We have to find out the facts before we can draft the UP, PP, and interim probanda. Task: so that you can appreciate the levels of analysis go back to the statements and highlight the key words and phrases that begin to allow you to break into them and locate the story, and the law. Then try to give answers to the following questions: (1) What are the relevant facts? (2) What key phrases in the statements give you clues as to the application of the law? (3) Can you construct the deductive argument for the prosecution? (4) Can you construct the inductive argument for the prosecution? (5) Can you construct the opposing inductive argument for the defence? (6) Are there any conditions of doubt in your mind surrounding the wording of s1(1) of the Theft Act which may apply? (For example questions surrounding the presence of both mens rea and actus reus.) DO NOT PROCEED UNTIL YOU HAVE ANSWERED QUESTIONS (1)–(6).

2012 ◽  
pp. 253-254
Keyword(s):  
Key Words ◽  
Levels Of Analysis ◽  
Mens Rea ◽  
Key Words And Phrases ◽  
Deductive Argument ◽  
Inductive Argument ◽  
Probative Value ◽  
Actus Reus ◽  
The Law ◽  
Key Phrases

2. Actus reus

2021 ◽  
pp. 39-84
Author(s):  
John Child ◽  
David Ormerod
Keyword(s):  
Legal Reform ◽  
Mens Rea ◽  
Problem Type ◽  
Actus Reus ◽  
The Law ◽  
Type Question

This chapter provides an overview of actus reus, which refers to the ‘external elements’ of an offence. These external elements do not simply relate to D’s conduct. Rather, as we will see, the actus reus of an offence includes any offence elements outside of the fault element (‘mens rea’) of the offence. Before discussing the elements that form the actus reus, this chapter considers the distinction between actus reus and mens rea. It then describes the three elements of actus reus: conduct, circumstances, and results. It also explains the categories of actus reus offences, omissions liability, and causation before concluding with sections that outline potential options for legal reform and a structure for analysing the actus reus of an offence when applying the law in a problem-type question. Relevant cases are highlighted throughout the chapter, with a brief summary of the main facts and judgment.

2. Actus reus

2021 ◽  
pp. 34-78
Author(s):  
Michael J. Allen ◽  
Ian Edwards
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Law ◽  
Mens Rea ◽  
Actus Reus ◽  
The Law ◽  
State Of Affairs

Course-focused and contextual, Criminal Law provides a succinct overview of the key areas on the law curriculum balanced with thought-provoking contextual discussion. This chapter explains the concept of actus reus. It discusses the elements of crime, defining an actus reus, proving an actus reus, that conduct must be voluntary, state of affairs offences, omissions liability (situations in which a person will be liable for failing to act), causation (including the principles of factual and legal causation), and coincidence in time of actus reus and mens rea. ‘The law in context’ feature analyses critically English law’s approach to liability for causing another person’s suicide.

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