A System of Excuses: How Criminal Law’s Excuse Defenses Do, and Don’t, Work Together to Exculpate Blameless (And Only Blameless) Offenders

Authors

Paul H. Robinson, University of Pennsylvania Carey Law SchoolFollow

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

1-1-2009

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

Publication Title

Texas Tech+H294 Law Review

Publication Citation

42 Tex. Tech. L. Rev. 259 (2009).

Repository Citation

Robinson, Paul H., "A System of Excuses: How Criminal Law’s Excuse Defenses Do, and Don’t, Work Together to Exculpate Blameless (And Only Blameless) Offenders" (2009). All Faculty Scholarship. 283.
https://scholarship.law.upenn.edu/faculty_scholarship/283