Rethinking the Balance of Interests in Non-Exculpatory Defenses
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[1] University of Pennsylvania
University of Pennsylvania
City of Philadelphia, Estados Unidos
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- Localización: The journal of criminal law and criminology, ISSN 0091-4169, Vol. 1, Nº. 1, 2024, págs. 1-45
- Idioma: inglés
- Texto completo no disponible (Saber más ...)
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Resumen
Most criminal law defenses serve the criminal law’s goal of shielding blameless defendants from liability. Justification defenses, such as self- defense and law enforcement authority, exculpate on the ground that the defendant’s conduct, on balance, does not violate a societal norm. Excuse defenses, such as insanity and duress, exculpate on the ground that, while the defendant may well have violated a societal norm, it was done blamelessly. That is, it is the excusing conditions, not the defendant, that is to blame. In contrast, a third group of general defenses, which have been called “non-exculpatory defenses,” bar liability in instances where the defendant may have clearly violated a societal norm with full blameworthiness yet nonetheless is exempt from criminal liability because giving the exemption advances some societal interest independent of—and in conflict with—the criminal law’s goal of imposing deserved punishment in proportion to an offender’s blameworthiness. Non-exculpatory defenses openly sacrifice doing justice in order to promote the competing non-justice interest.
