Legal Research

This Week's Highlighted Acquisitions

Alexander, Larry, Kimberly Kessler Ferzan, with contributions by Stephen J. Morse. Crime and culpability : a theory of criminal law.
New York : Cambridge University Press, 2009. Call number: K5103 .A44 2009

Publisher?s Description:
This book presents a comprehensive overview of what the criminal law would look like if organised around the principle that those who deserve punishment should receive punishment commensurate with, but no greater than, that which they deserve. Larry Alexander and Kimberly Kessler Ferzan argue that desert is a function of the actor?s culpability, and that culpability is a function of the risks of harm to protected interests that the actor believes he is imposing and his reasons for acting in the face of those risks. The authors deny that resultant harms, as well as unperceived risks, affect the actor?s desert. They thus reject punishment for inadvertent negligence as well as for intentions or preparatory acts that are not risky. Alexander and Ferzan discuss the reasons for imposing risks that negate or mitigate culpability, the individuation of crimes, and omissions.

Muhlhahn, Klaus. Criminal justice in China : a history.
Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press, 2009. Call number: KNN1572 .M84 2009

Publisher?s Description:
In a groundbreaking work, Klaus Muhlhahn offers a comprehensive examination of the criminal justice system in modern China, an institution deeply rooted in politics, society, and culture. In late imperial China, flogging, tattooing, torture, and servitude were routine punishments. Sentences, including executions, were generally carried out in public.

After 1905, in a drive to build a strong state and curtail pressure from the West, Chinese officials initiated major legal reforms. Physical punishments were replaced by fines and imprisonment. Capital punishment, though removed from the public sphere, remained in force for the worst crimes. Trials no longer relied on confessions obtained through torture but were instead held in open court and based on evidence. Prison reform became the centerpiece of an ambitious social-improvement program.

After 1949, the Chinese communists developed their own definitions of criminality and new forms of punishment. People's tribunals were convened before large crowds, which often participated in the proceedings. At the center of the socialist system was 'reform through labor', and thousands of camps administered prison sentences. Eventually, the communist leadership used the camps to detain anyone who offended against the new society, and the 'crime' of counter-revolution was born. Muhlhahn reveals the broad contours of criminal justice from late imperial China to the Deng reform era and details the underlying values, successes and failures, and ultimate human costs of the system.

Farahany, Nita A., ed. The impact of behavioral sciences on criminal law.
Oxford ; New York : Oxford University Press, 2009. Call number: K5028.5 .I47 2009

Publisher?s Description:
The Impact of Behavioral Sciences on Criminal Law is essential reading for anyone interested in the ongoing genomics and neuroscience revolution and its implications for criminal law. Building in part on a recent multi-disciplinary conference, this collection of essays offers a comprehensive discussion of the ramifications of behavioral sciences in criminal cases and brings together the leading behavioral geneticists, neuroscientists, philosophers, policymakers, and legal scholars to address the multi-faceted concerns at issue.

Together, the essays in this volume discuss the scientific progress and limitations in behavioral science research relating to criminal conduct, and the ethical concerns and practical implications of introducing behavioral science evidence into criminal cases. Included is a detailed discussion of criminal cases in which biological and neurological predisposition testimony has been introduced, the implications for criminal responsibility and punishment, the consequences for DNA databank research, new directions in predictions of future dangerousness, and the concerns for ethnic and racial minorities arising from this research.

Lynch, Timothy, ed. In the name of justice : leading experts reexamine the classic article "The aims of the criminal law."
Washington, D.C. : Cato Institute, c2009. Call number: KF9223 .I58 2009

Publisher?s Description:
Is the American criminal justice system dysfunctional? Our criminal codes are so voluminous that they bewilder not only the average citizen, but also the average lawyer. Our courthouses are so busy that they no longer have time for trials. And the American prison population now leads that of the world. Are these trends desirable, satisfactory, or disturbing? In order to answer that question, one must first be clear about the fundamental purpose of the criminal law. Fifty years ago, the distinguished Harvard law professor Henry M. Hart Jr. wrote his classic article entitled ?The Aims of the Criminal Law.? In this volume, America's leading judges and scholars reexamine Professor Hart's thesis and the first principles of American criminal law.

Full post as published by LexLibris on May 18, 2009 (boomark / email).