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When someone commits a crime, what are the limits on a state's authority to define them as worthy of blame, and thus liable to punishment? This book answers that question, building on two ideas familiar to criminal lawyers: actus reus and mens rea, usually translated as "guilty act" and "guilty mind." In Guilty Acts, Guilty Minds, Stephen P. Garvey proposes an understanding of actus reus and mens rea as limits on the authority of a state, and in particular the authority of a democratic state, to ascribe guilt to those accused of crime. Garvey argues that actus reus and mens rea are necessary conditions for legitimate state punishment. Drawing on the work of political philosophers, moral philosophers, and criminal law theorists, Garvey provides clear explanations of how these concepts apply to a wide variety of cases. The book charges readers to consider practical examples and ask: whatever you believe regarding the justice of the rules, did the state act within the scope of its legitimate authority when it enacted those rules into law? Based on extensive research, this book presents a new theory in which the concepts of actus reus and mens rea mark the limits of state power rather than simply describe the elements of a crime. Making the compelling distinction between legitimacy and justice, Guilty Acts, Guilty Minds provides an important perspective on the limits of state authority.
We live in an era defined by corporate greed and malfeasance—one in which unprecedented accounting frauds and failures of compliance run rampant. In order to calm investor fears, revive perceptions of legitimacy in markets, and demonstrate the resolve of state and federal regulators, a host of reforms, high-profile investigations, and symbolic prosecutions have been conducted in response. But are they enough? In this timely work, William S. Laufer argues that even with recent legal reforms, corporate criminal law continues to be ineffective. As evidence, Laufer considers the failure of courts and legislatures to fashion liability rules that fairly attribute blame for organizations. He analyzes the games that corporations play to deflect criminal responsibility. And he also demonstrates how the exchange of cooperation for prosecutorial leniency and amnesty belies true law enforcement. But none of these factors, according to Laufer, trumps the fact that there is no single constituency or interest group that strongly and consistently advocates the importance and priority of corporate criminal liability. In the absence of a new standard of corporate liability, the power of regulators to keep corporate abuses in check will remain insufficient. A necessary corrective to our current climate of graft and greed, Corporate Bodies and Guilty Minds will be essential to policymakers and legal minds alike. “[This] timely work offers a dispassionate analysis of problems relating to corporate crime.”—Harvard Law Review
New York Times bestselling author Joseph Finder delivers an exhilarating and timely thriller exploring how even the most powerful among us can be brought down by a carefully crafted lie and how the secrets we keep can never truly stay buried. The chief justice of the Supreme Court is about to be defamed, his career destroyed, by a powerful gossip website that specializes in dirt on celebs and politicians. Their top reporter has written an exposé claiming that he had liaisons with an escort, a young woman prepared to tell the world her salacious tale. But the chief justice is not without allies and his greatest supporter is determined to stop the story in its tracks. Nick Heller is a private spy—an intelligence operative based in Boston, hired by lawyers, politicians, and even foreign governments. A high-powered investigator with a penchant for doing things his own way, he’s called to Washington, DC, to help out in this delicate, potentially explosive situation. Nick has just forty-eight hours to disprove the story about the chief justice. But when the call girl is found murdered, the case takes a dangerous turn, and Nick resolves to find the mastermind behind the conspiracy before anyone else falls victim to the maelstrom of political scandal and ruined reputations predicated upon one long-buried secret.
With wit and intelligence, Leo Katz seeks to understand the basic rules and concepts underlying the moral, linguistic, and psychological puzzles that plague the criminal law. "Bad Acts and Guilty Minds . . . revives the mind, it challenges superficial analyses, it reminds us that underlying the vast body of statutory and case law, there is a rationale founded in basic notions of fairness and reason. . . . It will help lawyers to better serve their clients and the society that permits attorneys to hang out their shingles."—Edward N. Costikyan, New York Times Book Review
