Tuesday, June 1, 2010
Markel, Leib, & Collins: “Rethinking Criminal Law and Family Status”
Dan Markel (Florida State
University College of Law), Ethan J. Leib (University of California-Hastings
College of the Law), & Jennifer M. Collins (Wake Forest University-School
of Law) have posted Rethinking
Criminal Law and Family Status,
In our
recent book, Privilege or Punish: Criminal Justice and the Challenge of Family
Ties (OUP 2009), we examined and critiqued a number of ways in which the
criminal justice system uses family status to distribute benefits or burdens to
defendants. In their review essays, Professors Alafair Burke, Alice Ristroph
& Melissa Murray identify a series of concerns with the framework we offer
policymakers to analyze these family
ties benefits or burdens. We think it worthwhile not only to clarify
where those challenges rest on misunderstandings or confusions about the
central features of our views, but also to show the deficiencies of the
proposed alternatives. While we appreciate and admire the efforts of our
critics to advance this important conversation, we hope this Essay will
illuminate why the normative framework of Privilege or Punish remains a more
helpful structure to policymakers assessing how family status should intersect with the criminal law within a liberal democracy such as our own.
https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/family_law/2010/06/markel-leib-collins-rethinking-criminal-law-and-family-status.html