A System of Excuses: How Criminal Law’s Excuse Defenses Do, and Don’t, Work Together to Exculpate Blameless (and Only Blameless) Offenders
Texas Tech Law Review, Vol. 42, p. 259, 2009
14 Pages Posted: 22 Oct 2009 Last revised: 2 Apr 2010
Abstract
Criminal law excuses are analyzed as a group of analogous doctrines working together to exculpate blameless offenders. The analysis reveals that current law doctrine, although it often is not explicit about the parallel and integrated operation of its excuse defenses, does much to perform this exculpatory function. However, the systematic perspective of excuses also reveals some serious shortcomings of current doctrines.
Keywords: Criminal law excuses, duress, insanity, mental illness, mistake, intoxication, immaturity, impaired consciousness, involuntary act, hypnosis
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