Law without justice why criminal law doesn't give people what they deserve - Robinson, Paul H. (Oxford University Press, 2006)
Master and use copy. Digital master created according to Benchmark for Faithful Digital Reproductions of Monographs and Serials, Version 1. Digital Library Federation, December 2002
Includes bibliographical references (p. 233-311) and index
Introduction -- Objectives and organization -- The relevance of the project -- 1. Doing justice and the distractions from it -- Why focus on doing justice? -- A further word on what we mean by "doing justice" -- The utility of desert : the practical costs of deviations from doing justice -- pt. I. Promoting justice in a complex world -- 2. Fear of manipulation and abuse -- Is a federal prison guard a "peace officer"? -- Rejecting a defense for reasonable mistake of law (or for necessity, or immaturity) -- "Whoosh, whoosh, push" -- Improperly narrowing or rejecting legitimate excuses -- Sodomized and taunted, the pot boils over -- Relying upon a purely objective standard -- Preventing over-individualization of an objective standard -- 3. Advancing reliability -- Too late for justice -- Statutes of limitation -- Howard aftermath -- Mistakes of youth -- Strict liability -- Excluding coerced confessions and uncounseled lineups -- 4. Making the most of limited resources -- A bargain on contract killings? -- Plea bargaining and witness immunity -- Gravano aftermath -- pt. II. Sacrificing justice to promote other interests -- 5. Living by rules -- Three hundred bodies in the backyard -- Legality -- Marsh aftermath -- Cannibalism at sea -- Denying legitimate excuses (for the sake of clarity) -- Dudley aftermath -- Setting boundaries : legality and changing norms
6. Controlling crime and criminals -- Fleeing as murder -- Deterrence -- Rehabilitation -- TV violence -- Incapacitation -- 7. Controlling police and prosecutors -- Released to kill -- Exclusionary rules -- Speedy trial -- Eyler aftermath -- Pictures in the heating duct -- Double jeopardy -- Ignatow aftermath -- Incompetency -- A winged car powered by cocaine -- Entrapment -- Moral credibility "versus" legitimacy : evaluating the tradeoffs -- 8. Promoting interests unrelated to criminal justice -- Criminal camping -- Criminalization of regulatory violations -- Lindsey aftermath -- Corporate criminality -- The diplomatic rapist -- Diplomatic and official immunity -- pt. III. Regaining moral credibility -- 9. Criminal justice reforms -- Shifting evidentiary burdens -- Revamping the verdict system -- Using alternative punishment methods -- 10. Employing civil rather than criminal process -- Using administrative, instead of criminal, sanctions for regulatory violations -- Controlling police and prosecutor misconduct without letting the criminal go free -- Distinguishing dangerousness from blameworthiness -- Conclusion : doing justice in a complex world
This book is a ... for thoughtful legislators and all the rest of us who seek justice for persons charged with crimes-proportional punishment of the guilty, and exculpation of the morally blameless. The authors demonstrate, with remarkable lucidity, how and why the criminal law sometimes deliberately sacrifices justice for other goals, and they provide thoughtful, controversial, and often persuasive suggestions on how we can redesign our legal system to give people their just deserts. [In the book, the authors offer an] account of how the American criminal justice system fails to give offenders their just deserts in a number of different contexts. From the refusal to allow partial exoneration for defenses like mistake of law and insanity to the practical limitations on detecting and prosecuting offenders, [they also] demonstrate through ... discussions of actual cases the many areas where criminal sentencing fails to do justice.-Dust jacket