Offences and defences again

Oxford Journal of Legal Studies

Volumn 28, Issue 3, 2008, Pages 563-584

  Westen, Peter ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN   (United States)

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[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 51049099581     PISSN: 01436503     EISSN: 14643820     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1093/ojls/gqn016     Document Type: Article

References (107)

1. AFC 9, 142.
2. Ibid 174.
3. Ibid 5.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid.
6. Ibid 7.
7. Ibid.
8. Ibid 10-11.
9. Ibid 7.
10. Peter Westen, 'An Attitudinal Theory of Excuse' (2006) 25 Law and Phil. 289-375, 353-71.
11. See also Victor Tadros, Criminal Responsibility (OUP, Oxford 2006) 82-90.
12. See AFC 39.
13. Paul Robinson, Structure and Function in Criminal Law (Clarendon Press, Oxford 1997) 71-81.
14. See AFC 206.
15. Ibid 18.
16. Ibid 179.
17. Ibid 207.
18. See Fed R Crim P Rule 12(c).
19. See Fed R Crim P Rule 12(e);
20. Smith v United State [1989] 876 F 2d 655, 657.
21. Menna v New York [1975] 423 US 61, 62.
22. AFC 21.
23. Duff concedes at the end of the book that answers can be 'hypothetical', ibid 297, but does not seem to realize that doing so undermines his being able to link substance to procedure.
24. See ibid 284-91 (arguing that when an actor is so young or his mind is so profoundly disordered that he is incapable of responding to reasons, his deficit constitutes an exemption from responsibility rather than a defence to an offence, despite the fact that defendants may possess evidentiary burdens).
25. See also ibid 227, 239-42.
26. Ibid 22.
27. Ibid 229.
28. Ibid 242.
29. Ibid 18.
30. See eg, Glanville Williams, 'The Logic of "Exceptions"' (1988) 42 CLJ 261-95;
31. Glanville Williams, 'Offences and Defences' (1982) 2 LS 233-66.
32. To distinguish procedurally between offences and defences is to distinguish issues by reference to which party bears the burden of proving them. To distinguish formally between them is to distinguish issues by reference to their generality.
33. See Westen (n 10) 292-310.
34. See, eg, Kenneth Campbell, 'Offence and Defence', in Ian Dennis (ed), Criminal Law and Justice 73-86 (Sweet and Maxwell, London 1987) 73-96;
35. George Fletcher, Basic Concepts in Criminal Law (OUP Oxford, 1998) 93-110;
36. John Gardner 'Fletcher on Offences and Defences' (2004) 39 Tulsa L Rev 817-27);
37. Victor Tadros (n 10) 103-15.
38. For criticism of Fletcher's purposes in drawing the distinction, see Peter Westen, 'The Nature of Justification: An Appreciative But Critical Comment', in R Christopher, Essays on Criminal Law (OUP Oxford 2009, forthcoming).
39. AFC 38-43, 57, 60, 72.
40. Duff also refers to such objective reasons as 'guiding reasons.' Ibid 273.
41. Ibid 220.
42. Ibid 166.
43. Ibid 224.
44. Ibid 19.
45. Ibid.
46. See also ibid 69-77 (the 'epistemic condition' is a condition of moral liability, not of moral responsibility).
47. Ibid 220.
48. See ibid 210 ('Anyone who wants to argue that we should count consent as a defence [to rape] must offer an account of the offence in terms that do not include lack of consent, and show that the offence as thus defined constitutes a distinctive presumptive wrong').
49. See ibid 209 (referring to what 'makes ... moral sense to citizens of contemporary liberal democracies').
50. Ibid 219.
51. George Fletcher, Rethinking Criminal Law (OUP, Oxford 2000) 699-707.
52. AFC 208-11.
53. See Michelle Madden Dempsey and Jonathan Herring, 'Why Sexual Penetration Requires Justification' (2007) 27 OJLS 467-91, 468-69 (citing Kenneth Campbell, John Gardner, Stephen Shute and Victor Tadros).
54. For the distinction between actual and imputed consent, see Peter Westen, The Logic of Consent: The Diversity and Deceptiveness of Consent as a Defense in Criminal Law (Ashgate Publishing Aldershot, 2004) 269-306.
55. Ibid 177-245.
56. AFC 209.
57. Madden Dempsey and Herring (n 44).
58. AFC 210.
59. See ibid 213 (killing in self-defence and killing outlaws ought to be understood as defences of justification).
60. Ibid.
61. Ibid 212.
62. See ibid 270.
63. See ibid 281.
64. See Robinson (n 12) 94-124.
65. See, eg, Fletcher (n 30) 102-06;
66. John Gardner, 'Justifications and Reasons, in Harm and Culpability', in AP Simester and ATH Smith (eds) Harm and Culpability (Clarendon Press Oxford, 1996) 103, 107-14;
67. Tadros (n 10) 273-80.
68. See AFC 279-80.
69. Ibid 279.
70. Ibid 281.
71. Ibid 281 (emphasis added).
72. Ibid
73. See ibid 281-2.
74. Ibid 281 (emphasis added).
75. Ibid 283.
76. See RA Duff, Criminal Attempts (Clarendon Press, Oxford 1996) 116-27, 327-47.
77. Russell Christopher questions the logic of the deeds view of unknowing justification. Russell Christopher, 'Unknowing Justification and the Logic of the Dadson Principle in Self-Defence' (1995) 15 OJLS 229-51.
78. For criticism of Christopher, see Peter Westen and James Mangiafico, 'The Defence of Duress In Criminal Law' (2003) 6 Buff Crim L Rev 833-950, 877 (n 92).
79. See, eg, Larry Alexander, 'Crime and Culpability' (1994) 5J Contemp Leg Issues 1-30, 17-22;
80. Andrew Ashworth, 'Defining Criminal Offences Without Harm', in P Smith (ed) Criminal Law (Butterworths, London 1987) 7;
81. Sanford Kadish, 'The Criminal Law and the Luck of the Draw' (1994) 84 J Crim L & Criminology 679-702.
82. See Peter Westen, 'Why criminal harms matter: Plato's abiding insight in the Laws' (2007) 1 Crim L & Phil 307-26.
83. See AFC 271-7, 281-4.
84. See ibid 290 (arguing that when an actor's psychosis is 'general and all-embracing,' the defence of excuse does not arise because the actor, not being an 'agent' capable of responding to reasons, is not responsible for an offence in the first place).
85. See ibid 287, 289-96.
86. See ibid 289.
87. Ibid 296.
88. See ibid 273-4.
89. Ibid 274.
90. See ibid 284-91.
91. See Westen and Mangiafico (n 66) 849-53.
92. Ibid 906-7 (citing authorities).
93. See Peter Westen, 'Individualizing the Reasonable Person In Criminal Law' (2008), 2 Crim L & Phil 137-62.
94. See Westen and Mangiafico (n 66) 907-9;
95. Westen (n 10) 319-20.
96. See AFC 288, 292-6.
97. Ibid 295.
98. Ibid 288.
99. Ibid 289 (emphasis added).
100. See Antony Duff, 'Choice, Charter, and Criminal Liability' (1993) 12 Law and Phil 345-83, 371-80.
101. See Westen and Mangiafico (n 66) 924-50 (arguing that wrongful coercion alters the normative relationship that would otherwise exist between evils).
102. AFC 202-7. Duff also rejects actus reus for being unable to accommodate elements of human agency. See ibid 202-3.
103. However, this overlooks what Duff admits elsewhere, namely, that moral responsibility is capable of being conceptualized solely in terms of 'harm causing', regardless of agency, see ibid 230 and n 3, thus enabling us to relegate issues of agency to mens rea.
104. I say 'morally' responsible, because the law sometimes punishes without fault.
105. See Westen (n 10) 294
106. See ibid 353-75
107. See Peter Westen, 'Impossibility Attempts: A Speculative Thesis' (2008), 5 Ohio State J Crim L. 523-65.