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Books > Law > Laws of other jurisdictions & general law > Criminal law
This book provides a fresh look at the way the United States is choosing to deal with some of the serious or persistent youth offenders: by transferring juvenile offenders to adult courts. For more than 20 years now, the attitude in some jurisdictions has been "if you're old enough to do the crime, you're old enough to do the time." After two decades of applying this increasingly punitive mindset to juvenile offenders, it is possible to see the actual consequences of transferring more and younger offenders to adult courts. In Do the Crime, Do the Time: Juvenile Criminals and Adult Justice in the American Court System, the authors apply their decades of experience, both in the practical world and from unique research perspectives, to shed light on the influence of public opinion and the political forces that shape juvenile justice policy in the United States. The book provides a fresh look at the way the United States is choosing to deal with some of the serious or persistent juvenile offenders, utilizing real-life examples and cases to draw connections between transfer policies and individual outcomes.
In 2003 Governor George Ryan cleared Illinois' death row, pardoning four death penalty inmates who said their confessions had been tortured out of them. He then commuted the death sentences of the remaining 156 death-row inmates to life in prison - a move unprecedented since capital punishment was reinstated in America. But Ryan's move was only the most dramatic at a time when it seems that everyday we read of a new prisoner released because of new evidence, police misconduct, or a host of other miscarriages of justice. While the American legal system is based on the tenet that accused persons are considered innocent until proven guilty, a close look at many cases reveal that this is often far from the truth. story of just such wrongful conviction cases. Based upon interviews with more than 200 people and reviews of hundreds of internal case files, court records, smoking-gun memoranda and other documents, Scott Christianson gets inside the legal cases and displays them through documents and images of the people and evidence involved. He reveals the mistakes, abuses and underlying factors that led to miscarriages of justice, including the presumption of guilt, mistaken identification, eyewitness perjury, ineffective assistance of counsel, police misconduct, prosecutorial misconduct, and forensics, while also describing how determined prisoners, post-conviction attorneys, advocates and journalists struggled against tremendous odds to win their exonerations. their innocence to the courts. Others have had their convictions reversed and the charges against them dismissed, and still others have been awarded civil damages after the state conceded their innocence. The result is a brief and powerful work that recounts the human costs of a criminal justice system gone awry, and reminds us that wrongful convictions can - and do - happen.
The present volume consists of up-to-date review articles on topics relevant to psychology and law, and will be of current interest to the field. Notably, the majority of these topics are currently attracting a great deal of research and public policy attention in the U.S. and elsewhere, as evidenced by programs at the American Psychology-Law Society and related conferences. Topics for the present volume include: attitudes toward the police (Cole et al.), alibis (Charman et al.), hate crimes based on gender and sexual orientation (Plumm & Leighton), the role of gender at trial (Livingston et al.), neuroimages in court (Glen), intimate partner violence (Mauer & Reppucci), post-identification feedback (Douglass & Smalarz) and individual differences in eyewitness identification (Snowden & Bornstein), veterans' wellbeing (Berthelot & Prager), and plea bargaining (Levett).
Increasingly, international governmental networks and organisations make it necessary to master the legal principles of other jurisdictions. Since the advent of international criminal tribunals this need has fully reached criminal law. A large part of their work is based on comparative research. The legal systems which contribute most to this systemic discussion are common law and civil law, sometimes called continental law. So far this dialogue appears to have been dominated by the former. While there are many reasons for this, one stands out very clearly: Language. English has become the lingua franca of international legal research. The present book addresses this issue. Thomas Vormbaum is one of the foremost German legal historians and the book's original has become a cornerstone of research into the history of German criminal law beyond doctrinal expositions; it allows a look at the system s genesis, its ideological, political and cultural roots. In the field of comparative research, it is of the utmost importance to have an understanding of the law s provenance, in other words its historical DNA."
Strict liability is a controversial phenomenon in the criminal law because of its potential to convict blameless persons. Offences are said to impose strict liability when, in relation to one or more elements of the actus reus, there is no need for the prosecution to prove a corresponding mens rea or fault element. For example, in the 1986 case of Storkwain, the defendant chemists were convicted of selling controlled medicines without prescription simply upon proof that they had in fact done so. It was irrelevant that they neither knew nor had reason to suspect that the 'prescriptions' they fulfilled were forgeries. Thus strict liability offences have the potential to generate criminal convictions of persons who are morally innocent. Appraising Strict Liability is a collection of original contributions offering the first full-length consideration of the problem of strict liability in the criminal law. The chapters, including European and Anglo-American perspectives, provide a sustained and wide-ranging examination of the fundamental issues. They explore the definition of strict liability; the relationship between strict liability and blame, and its implications for the requirement for culpability in criminal law; the relevance of European and human rights jurisprudence; and the interaction between substantive rules of strict liability and evidential presumptions. The breadth and depth of the contributions combine to present readers with a sophisticated analysis of the place and legitimacy of strict liability in the criminal law.
Courts are constantly required to know how people think. They may have to decide what a specific person was thinking on a past occasion; how others would have reacted to a particular situation; or whether a witness is telling the truth. Be they judges, jurors or magistrates, the law demands they penetrate human consciousness. This book questions whether the arm-chair psychology' operated by fact-finders, and indeed the law itself, in its treatment of the fact-finders, bears any resemblance to the knowledge derived from psychological research. Comparing psychological theory with court verdicts in both civil and criminal contexts, it assesses where the separation between law and science is most acute, and most dangerous.
Under the European Arrest Warrant (EAW) system, Member States of the European Union are under the obligation to arrest and surrender individuals upon the request of judicial authorities of other Member States. In doing this, it is important that human rights are respected and that there is room for national peculiarities. Awareness of what unites the Member States as well as respect for what makes them different, are prerequisites for a fruitful cooperation. This book will be a useful tool for those involved as practitioners in cooperating under the EAW scheme, e.g. judicial authorities, judges, and counsel representing and advising those who are subject to surrender. Moreover, it will evoke academic interest for its information on EAW practice. The reader will find comments on the various stages of the surrender procedure in a chronological order, starting with the content of the European Arrest Warrant, continuing with the refusal grounds, and ending with the consequences of surrender. The scope of the book goes beyond the frontiers of the European Union. Two chapters deal with other (regional) extradition systems: the one of the Nordic countries and the one of the United States. Nico Keijzer is a former justice in the Supreme Court of the Netherlands, and emiritus Professor of international criminal law at Tilburg University, the Netherlands. Elies van Sliedregt is Professor of criminal law at the VU University in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
Marianne Wade and Almir Maljevi? Although the worries about terrorism paled in comparison to the economic crisis as a topic during the last US election, one can find plenty of grounds to assume that they remain issue number one in the minds of politicians in Europe. As the German houses of Parliament prepare to call in the mediation committee in the discussion of legislation which would provide the Federal Police - thus far mandated purely with the post-facto investigation of crime - with powers to act to prevent acts of terrorism, Spain's struggle with ETA and the British Government licks its wounds after a resounding defeat of its latest anti-terrorist proposals by the House of Lords, one cannot but wonder whether post 9/11, the Europeans are not even more concerned with terrorism than their US counterparts. A look at media reports, legislative and judicial activities in either Britain or Germany clearly underlines that those two countries are deeply embroiled in anti-terrorist activity. Can it be that Europe is embroiled in the "War on Terror"; constantly providing for new arms in this conflict? Or is it a refusal to participate in the "War on Terror" that fuels a constant need for Parliaments to grapple with the subject; begrudgingly conceding one increasingly draconian measure after the other? The question as to where Europe stands in the "War on Terror" is a fascinating one, but one, which is difficult to answer.
Contributing to the literature on comparative criminal procedure and Latin American law, this book examines the effects of adversarial criminal justice reforms on victim's rights by specifically analyzing the Colombian criminal justice reform of the early 2000s. This research focuses on the production, interpretation, and implementation of rules and institutions by exploring how different actors have employed the concept of victims and victims' rights to promote their agendas in the context of criminal justice reforms. It also analyzes how the goals of these agendas have interplayed in practice. By the early 2000s, it seemed that the Colombian criminal justice system was headed towards a process characterized by broader victim participation, primarily because of the doctrine of the Constitutional Court on victims' rights. But in 2002, the Colombian Attorney General promoted a more adversarial criminal justice reform. This book argues that this reform represented a sudden and unpredicted reversal of the Constitutional Court's doctrine on victim participation, even though one of the central justifications for the reform was the need to satisfy human rights standards and adhere to the jurisprudence of the Constitutional Court on victims' rights. In the criminal justice reform of the early 2000s and its subsequent modifications, the promotion of a dichotomous interpretation of the adversarial model-which conceived the criminal process as a competition between prosecution and defense-served to limit victim participation. This study examines how conceptions of victims' rights emerged out of the struggles between different and at times competing agendas. In the Colombian process of reform, victims' rights have been invoked both as a justification for criminal sanctions and as an explanation for crime prevention and restorative justice. After assessing quantitative and qualitative data, this book concludes that punitive approaches to victims' rights have prevailed over restorative justice perspectives. Furthermore, it argues that punitiveness in the criminal justice system has not resulted in more protection for victims. Ultimately, this research reveals that the adversarial criminal justice reform of the early 2000s has not substantially improved the protection of victims' rights in Colombia.
A CRIME BURIED FOR YEARS. AND ONE THAT'S JUST BEGUN... 'An authentic, topical and terrifying thriller: one of Michael Connelly's very best' THE TIMES 'Yet another superb thriller from a writer at the top of his game' SUNDAY EXPRESS 'Consistently excellent' MAIL ON SUNDAY * * * * * A MURDER YEARS IN THE MAKING A murder in the middle of a street party seems a senseless tragedy. But the victim had a dark past which came back to haunt him. THE DEEPER YOU LOOK Detective Renee Ballard connects the killing to an unsolved case last worked by ex-LAPD legend Harry Bosch. But then a new crime shatters the night shift... THE DARKER IT GETS The Midnight Men are a deadly pair of predators who stalk the city during the dark hours and disappear without a trace. Ballard once believed her job was to bring the truth to light. In a police department shaken to the core by protests and pandemic, both cases have the power to save her - or end her... * * * * * CRIME DOESN'T COME BETTER THAN CONNELLY: 'One of the very best writers working today' Sunday Telegraph 'The pre-eminent detective novelist of his generation' Ian Rankin 'The best mystery writer in the world' GQ 'A superb natural storyteller' Lee Child 'A master' Stephen King 'Crime thriller writing of the highest order' Guardian 'America's greatest living crime writer' Daily Express 'A crime writing genius' Independent on Sunday
Explore the key aspects of business law through accessible, engaging real-life cas Law for Business Students, 12th edition, by Adams, Caplan and Lockwood provides you with contemporary and comprehensive coverage of the fundamental legal principles relating to the business environment. It introduces legal concepts to non-law students in a practical and engaging way through real-life cases relevant to the business world. The book offers a range of features to help you understand, apply and analyse legal concepts, including scenarios to encourage the development of opinions and application of relevant legal concepts. The 'Worth thinking about' sections provide discussion points to analyse within the classroom, while 'Exam tips' help revision practice by pointing to areas of the law which are likely to appear in exam questions. The new edition has been thoroughly updated to cover legal developments in a range of diverse areas relevant to the core topics of law: contract (including intellectual property), tort, employment and business organisations (including formation), governance, and dissolution. It reflects the changes in the law as a result of Brexit, as well as Covid litigation arising in relation to employment rights. This title also has a Companion Website.
This is the first comprehensive handbook in the philosophy of criminal law. It contains seventeen original essays by leading thinkers in the field and covers the field's major topics including limits to criminalization, obscenity and hate speech, blackmail, the law of rape, attempts, accomplice liability, causation, responsibility, justification and excuse, duress, provocation and self-defense, insanity, punishment, the death penalty, mercy, and preventive detention and other alternatives to punishment. It will be an invaluable resource for scholars and students whose research and studies concern philosophical issues in criminal law and criminal law theory.
For as long as historical annals have been kept, they have recorded the frauds and fakes that have been imposed upon innocent dupes. Perhaps the earliest Christian story of all is that which tells of the deception that Jacob practised on his unsuspecting father Abraham, pretending to be his brother Esau; and today the theft of identity is reported to be the most rapidly spreading crime. And throughout the ages works of art and literature, coinage, and documents of all kinds have been forged for profit, personal status - and even out of pure mischief. Fakes, Scams and Forgeries details many of the most notorious acts of forgery, fraud and fakery that have taken place over the centuries, describing how they were perpetrated, their acceptance by those who considered themselves experts, and how - often after many years - they were eventually detected. As well as providing entertaining and in-depth profiles of famous forgers and legendary frauds, the text deals with the many modern scientific techniques that have been developed for the examination of suspect materials.
From wiretapping American citizens to waterboarding foreign prisoners, the Bush administration has triggered an uproar over its tactics in the War on Terror-and over its justifications for using them. Through a close study of the legal advice provided to President Bush, former Justice Department attorney Harold Bruff provides an incisive and scathing critique of those justifications, which he finds at odds with both American law and moral authority. Bruff rigorously examines legal opinions regarding NSA surveillance, the indefinite detention of terror suspects, the denial of Geneva Convention protection, trial by military commissions, and suspect interrogation techniques. He shows that Bush's claims of executive power exceed anything found in U.S. history or judicial precedent, that clear statutory limitations were treated with contempt, and that Bush and his lawyers strove to exclude both congressional and judicial participation in setting antiterrorist policy. Bruff dissects the legal underpinnings employed by John Yoo, David Addington, Alberto Gonzales, and others to defend an inflated view of presidential power, showing how they combined ideology, policy advocacy, and selective readings of legal precedent to bolster executive actions. Most important, he brings into sharp focus legitimate counterarguments from the State Department, the Pentagon, and the Office of Legal Counsel that challenged or refuted these legally suspect views and yet were largely ignored or even ridiculed by the president's advisers. Offering contrasts with the legal advice provided previous presidents, he also reviews the fundamental constitutional limits on executive action and the principles of professional responsibility that govern lawyers when they counsel government clients. As Bruff observes, bad advice to presidents is never in short supply, but legal advice should be objective and reliable. His book points up the urgent need for advisers to serve both the president and the nation by finding a middle ground between limiting presidential power and allowing it the flexibility it needs to respond to crises. Both highly readable and authoritative, it is a must for legal scholars and an eye-opener for every citizen concerned with preserving our nation's commitment to the rule of law.
Is it possible that the soldiers of mass atrocities-Adolph Eichmann in Nazi Germany and Alfredo Astiz in Argentina's Dirty War, for example-act under conditions that prevent them from recognizing their crimes? In the aftermath of catastrophic, state-sponsored mass murder, how are criminal courts to respond to those who either gave or carried out the military orders that seem unequivocally criminal? This important book addresses Hannah Arendt's controversial argument that perpetrators of mass crimes are completely unaware of their wrongdoing, and therefore existing criminal laws do not adequately address these defendants. Mark Osiel applies Arendt's ideas about the kind of people who implement bureaucratized large-scale atrocities to Argentina's Dirty War of the 1970s, and he also delves into the social conditions that could elicit such reprehensible conduct. He focuses on Argentine navy captain Astiz, who led one of the most notorious abduction squads, to discover how he and other junior officers could justify the murders of more than ten thousand suspected "subversives." Osiel concludes that legal stipulations labeling certain deeds as manifestly illegal are indefensible. He calls for a significant change in the laws of war to preserve both justice and the possibility of dialogue between factions in such sharply divided societies as Argentina. Osiel's proposals have profound implications for future prosecutions of Pinochet's lieutenants, Milosevic's henchmen, the willing executioners of Rwanda and East Timor, and other perpetrators of state-endorsed murder and torture.
"Understanding Forensic Digital Imaging" offers the principles of
forensic digital imaging and photography in a manner that is
straightforward and easy to digest for the professional and
student. It provides information on how to photograph any setting
that may have forensic value, details how to follow practices that
are acceptable in court, and recommends what variety of hardware
and software are most valuable to a practitioner.
Capturing the Change: Universalising Tendencies in Legal Interpretation Joanna Jemielniak and Przemys aw Mik aszewicz International and supranational integration on the European continent, as well as the harmonisation of the rules of international trade and the accompanying dev- opment and global popularity of the resolution of commercial disputes through arbitration, constantly exerts a considerable in uence on modern legal systems. The sources of each of these phenomena are different, and their action is dissimilar. Each can be described as reaching either from the top to the bottom, through the direct involvement of interested States and consequently affecting their internal legal s- tems (international and supranational integration; harmonisation of trade regulations through public international law instruments), or bottom-up, as a result of activity by private parties, leading to the achievement of uniform practices and standards (ar- tration, lex mercatoria). Nonetheless, they both enrich national legal cultures and contribute to transgressing the limits of national (local) particularisms in creating, interpreting and applying the law. The aim of this book is to demonstrate how these processes have in uenced the interpretation of law, how they have shaped the methods and techniques of the interpretation and with what consequences for the outcomes of the interpretative procedures. In assessing the extent of this in uence, due regard must be paid to the fact that the interpretation of law is not, in principle, directly determined by the provisions of law itself.
It has been many years since O. J. Simpson walked free from a downtown Los Angeles courtroom. For many, it was the demolition of the fundamental principle of right and wrong, and many debated the deficiencies of the American justice system. Since then, we have witnessed the Casey Anthony case, and others, that remind us of issues unaddressed and questions unanswered. In Fixing the Engine of Justice, author David Tunno presents the symptoms of a defective jury system and offers comprehensive, intelligent, and thought-provoking solutions. Tunno, a trial consultant for more than twenty years, has studied and researched key trials and has gleaned stories from his personal experiences to show a system beset with representation issues, incompetence, bias, misconduct, and lack of support and public perception based on misconceptions. He analyzes the flaws in the jury selection process, its lack of effectiveness, and the ways in which it contributes to the delivery of justice. Often humorous and irreverent, Fixing the Engine of Justice offers a diagnosis of the problems and a list of needed repairs to the American legal system. With the prime focus on juries, Tunno also takes aim at judges, attorneys, and other issues relevant to the health of the system.
The demand for forensic art usage in investigations is rapidly
expanding due to media attention. Despite this fact, to date no
book thoroughly explains how to sketch a suspect's face from a
witness' memory. "Forensic Art Essentials" teaches artists to
extract information from a witness or victim about a face they have
seen, and produce an image good enough to lead detectives to the
criminal being described. After reading this book, anyone with
adequate drawing skills will be able to learn the tools necessary
to develop his or her skills as a forensic artist. Instruction
focuses on an explanation of techniques for various scenarios and
includes the use of case studies of special situations and how they
should be handled.
This collection of original essays surveys the evolution of sentencing policies and practices in Western countries over the past twenty-five years. Contributors address plea-bargaining, community service, electronic monitoring, standards of use of incarceration, and legal perspectives on sentencing policy developments, among other topics. Sentencing and Sanctions in Western Countries provides a range of scholars' and students' excellent cross-national knowledge of sentencing laws and practices, when and why they have changed over time, and with what effects.
"A Litigator's Guide to DNA" educates litigators, judges,
criminalists, students, and others about all aspects of the use of
DNA evidence in criminal and civil trials. It includes discussions
of the molecular biological basis for the tests, essential
laboratory practices, probability theory and mathematical
calculations. It presents issues relevant to all parties involved
in trying a case, from the prosecution and the defense, and to the
judge and jury. The book is also extremely useful as a text for
students aspiring to careers in forensic science and criminal law.
This book of eleven chapters and an Introduction is by and about women, the harms and crimes to which they are subjected as a result of global social processes and their efforts to take control of their own futures. The chapters explore the criminogenic and damaging consequences of the policies of the global financial institutions as well as the effects of growing economic polarisation both in pockets of the developed world and most markedly in the global south. Reflecting on this evidence, in the Introduction the editors necessarily challenge existing criminological theory by expanding and elaborating a conception of social harm that encompasses this range of problems, and exposes where new solutions derived from criminological theory are necessary. A second theme addresses human rights from the standpoint of indigenous women, minority women and those seeking refuge. Inadequate and individualised as the human rights instruments presently are, for most of these women a politics of human rights emerges as central to the achieving of legal and political equality and protection from individual violence. Women in the poorest countries, however, are sceptical as to the efficacy of rights claims in the face of the depredations of international and global capital, and the social dislocation produced thereby. Nonetheless this is a hopeful book, emphasising the contribution which academic work can make, provided the methodology is appropriately gendered and sufficiently sensitive in its guiding ideology and techniques to hear and learn from the all too often 'glocalised' other. But in the end there is no solution without politics, and in both the opening and the closing sections of this book there are chapters which address this. What continues to be special about women's political practice is the connection between the groundedness of small groups and the fluidity and flexibility of regional and international networks: the effective politics of the global age. This book, then, is a new criminology for and by women, a book which opens up a new criminological terrain for both women and men - and a book which cannot easily be read without an emotional response.
In modern societies, full criminal trials are avoided on many occasions. This book is concerned with mechanisms that either divert from or speed up the proceedings. Koen Vriend argues that the fair trial rights as established by the European Court of Human Rights under Article 6 ECHR provide a normative framework that does not only apply in a full criminal trial, but that it can also be used for diverted and shortened proceedings. He shows that the concept of fairness-as derived from ECtHR case law-is a fundamental principle that underlies all criminal law enforcement. It provides for the appropriate framework to assess whether diverted or shortened proceedings are fair and legitimate. The book is intended for criminal law scholars and practitioners and human rights scholars. Dr. Koen Vriend is a Lecturer of Criminal Law and Criminal Procedural Law at the University of Amsterdam. |
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