Prologue: A brief history of the ancient juridical city of Fictionopolis 1
PART Ⅰ: CONTEXT 5
CHAPTER Ⅰ Contradiction, critique and criminal law 7
1 INTRODUCTION 7
2 RATIONALITY AND LEGALITY 8
3 INDIVIDUAL JUSTICE 10
4 UNDERSTANDING THE CONTRADICTIONS 12
CHAPTER 2 The historical context of criminal doctrine 15
1 INTRODUCTION 15
2 LEGAL INDIVIDUALISM AND SOCIAL INDIVIDUALITY 16
(ⅰ) Justice and deterrence in the penal theory of the Enlightenment 16
(a) The reformers’ task 16
(b) Retributive justice 17
(c) Utilitarian deterrence 18
(d) The need for legality 19
(ⅱ) Interests and ideology in reform penal theory 19
(a) Middle-class interests 20
(b) Middle-class interests and moral-legal individualism 20
(c) Abstractions and realities 21
(d) The character of modern law: its repressive individualism 23
3 LEGAL INDIVIDUALISM AND SOCIAL CONTROL 24
(ⅰ) The common law and the criminal law in history 25
(ⅱ) Logic, ‘policy’ and social class 26
4 THE FOUNDATIONAL TENSIONS OF CRIMINAL DOCTRINE 28
(ⅰ) Law’s psychological individualism 28
(ⅱ) Law’s political individualism 29
PART Ⅱ: MENS REA 33
CHAPTER 3 Motive and intention 35
1 INTRODUCTION 35
2 MOTIVE AND INTENTION: DESOCIALISING INDIVIDUAL LIFE 36
(ⅰ) Conflicting motives and common intentions 36
(ⅱ) Hidden motives 39
(a) Individual morality 39
(b) Political morality 40
(c) Social mores 41
(ⅲ) Informal remedies to the formal politics of denial 44
(a) Discretion to prosecute 44
(b) Discretion to convict 45
(c) Discretion in sentencing 45
3 INDIRECT INTENTION: LEGAL AND MORAL JUDGMENT 46
(ⅰ) Two approaches to direct and indirect (oblique) intention 47
(a) The formal psychological (‘orthodox subjectivist’) approach 47
(b) The morally substantive approach 49
(c) Summary of the two approaches 50
(ⅱ) The law of oblique intention: Moloney 50
(a) Guidelines to a jury in Moloney 52
(b) Moloney’s intended practical impact 52
(ⅲ) Having one’s subjectivist cake and eating it: interpreting Moloney 53
(a) Guidelines to a jury: Hancock and Shankland 53
(b) Hancock and Shankland’s practical impact 54
(ⅳ) The Moloney-Woollin axis 55
(a) Woollin and the parameters of indirect intention 55
(b) Woollin and the two approaches to intention 56
(c) ‘Entitled to find’ and the moral threshold 56
4 CONCLUSION 58
CHAPTER 4 Recklessness 59
1 INTRODUCTION 59
2 SUBJECTIVISM AND OBJECTIVISM IN THE LAW OF RECKLESSNESS 61
(ⅰ) The judgment in Caldwell 61
(ⅱ) Contradiction within Caldwell 63
(ⅲ) A limitation of the orthodox subjectivist approach 65
(ⅳ) A problem with the objectivist approach 66
(ⅴ) A ‘third way’? Introducing ‘practical indifference’ 69
3 RECKLESSNESS AS PRACTICAL INDIFFERENCE 70
(ⅰ) The concept of practical indifference 70
(ⅱ) Two questions about practical indifference 72
(a) Practical indifference and determinacy 72
(b) Is practical indifference subjective? 73
(ⅲ) The political limits of practical indifference 74
4 THE HISTORICAL ROOTS OF RECKLESSNESS 76
(ⅰ) ‘Factual’ versus ‘moral’ recklessness 76
(ⅱ) The roots of orthodox subjectivism 77
(ⅲ) An objection: the ‘objective’ question in orthodox subjectivism 79
5 CONCLUSION 80
CHAPTER 5 Strict and corporate liability 81
1 INTRODUCTION 81
2 DIFFERENTIATION: STRICT LIABILITY 83
(ⅰ) Introduction 83
(ⅱ) The ideological and practical context of the strict liability offence 85
(ⅲ) Strict liability and ‘real’ crime: a presumption of mens rea? 87
(ⅳ) Conclusion 90
3 ASSIMILATION: CORPORATE LIABILITY 92
(ⅰ) Introduction 92
(ⅱ) Conflating individual and corporate fault: the identity doctrine 93
(ⅲ) The responsibility of an organisation: aggregation and beyond 95
(a) Aggregation 95
(b) An organisational approach 96
(c) Problems with the organisational approach 96
(d) Law reform proposals 98
(e) Conclusion 99
(ⅳ) Responsibility, social complexity and the corporate form 100
(a) Economic integration and corporate responsibility 100
(b) Social co-ordination and corporate punishment 101
4 CONCLUSION 103
PART Ⅲ: ACTUS REUS 107
CHAPTER 6 Acts and omissions 109
1 INTRODUCTION 109
(ⅰ) Acts 110
(ⅱ) Omissions 111
2 ACTS 111
(ⅰ) Conflicting conceptions of voluntariness 112
(a) Physical involuntariness versus moral involuntariness 112
(b) Physical involuntariness versus moral voluntariness 114
(ⅱ) Limiting involuntariness 115
(a) The requirement of unconsciousness 115
(b) Intoxication, physical involuntariness and moral voluntariness 116
(c) Denying involuntariness in situational liability cases 119
(ⅲ) Conclusion 120
3 OMISSIONS 120
(ⅰ) Constructing the concept of an omission 121
(a) The drowning infant/stranger 122
(b) Killing and letting die 123
(ⅱ) Juridifying the concept of an omission 124
(ⅲ) Abstract right and social need 126
(ⅳ) Beyond individualism? 128
(a) The line drawing problem 128
(b) Specific duties of citizenship? 130
4 CONCLUSION 132
CHAPTER 7Causation 134
1 INTRODUCTION 134
2 A CRITICAL APPROACH TO CAUSATION 136
3 LIBERAL PRINCIPLES FOR THE IMPUTATION OF CAUSATION 137
4 ANALYSING THE CAUSATION CASES 141
(ⅰ) The intervention of a new voluntary act 141
(ⅱ) The intervention of an abnormal occurrence 144
(a) The medical treatment cases 144
(b) The ‘eggshell skull’ case 147
(c) The regulatory context 148
5 CONCLUSION 149
PART Ⅳ: DEFENCES 151
CHAPTER 8Necessity and duress 153
1 INTRODUCTION 153
2 NECESSITY 154
(ⅰ) Necessity’s ambiguous history 155
(ⅱ) Judgment and context: the case of Dudley and Stephens 156
(ⅲ) The re-emergence of necessity 159
(a) Necessity as Pandora’s Box 159
(b) Duress of circumstances 161
(c) Medical necessity 162
3 DURESS 164
(ⅰ) Conflicting positions in the recent murder cases 164
(ⅱ) The conflict within the basic arguments 165
(ⅲ) Further limits 168
(a) Mistake of duress 168
(b) Standard of resistance 169
(c) Self-induced duress 170
4 CONCLUSION 171
CHAPTER 9 Insanity and diminished responsibility 174
1 INTRODUCTION 174
2 LAW AGAINST PSYCHIATRY: THE SOCIAL CONTROL OF MADNESS 176
(ⅰ) Law’s rational subject 176
(ⅱ) The asylum and psychiatry 176
(ⅲ) Conflicting views of crime 178
3 BETWEEN LAW AND PSYCHIATRY: THE LEGAL DEFENCES 179
(ⅰ) Insanity 179
(a) The breadth of the Rules: ‘disease of the mind’ 180
(b) The narrowness of the Rules: the two cognitive tests 180
(ⅱ) Diminished responsibility 182
(a) Meaning of terms 182
(b) Conflict and co-operation in the law 183
4 LAW AND PSYCHIATRY IN CONFLICT: THE POLITICS OF LAW REFORM 185
(ⅰ) The post-Hinckley debate in the United States 186
(ⅱ) Reform proposals in England and Wales 187
5 LAW AND PSYCHIATRY COMBINED: THE DECONTEXTUALISATION OF MADNESS 188
(ⅰ) Covering up for the law 190
(a) Poverty and the insanity defence 190
(b) Women and diminished responsibility 191
(c) Limits to compassion and pragmatism 192
(ⅱ) Covering up for society: men killing women 192
6 CONCLUSION 193
(ⅰ) The nature of madness 193
(ⅱ) Law and psychiatry: consensus and conflict 195
PART Ⅴ: CONCLUDING 197
CHAPTER 10 Sentencing 199
1 INTRODUCTION 199
2 DETERRENCE 201
(ⅰ) Individual deterrence and its social context 203
(ⅱ) Individual versus general deterrence 205
3 RETRIBUTIVISM 207
(ⅰ) Introduction: ‘just deserts’ and sentencing 208
(ⅱ) Legitimating the allocation of punishment 209
(a) The ideal and the actual in classical retributivism 210
(b) ‘Just deserts in an unjust society’? 210
(ⅲ) Limiting punishment through proportionality 212
(a) The classical approach 212
(b) Cardinal and ordinal proportionality 213
(c) The living standards analysis 214
4 REHABILITATION AND INCAPACITATION 214
(ⅰ) Individualism versus individualisation 215
(ⅱ) Individualisation and sentencing 216
(a) Rehabilitation 216
(b) Incapacitation 217
5 SENTENCING IDEOLOGIES: THE INTERNAL DYNAMIC OF CONFLICT 218
(ⅰ) The antinomies of sentencing 218
(ⅱ) A dominant rationale? The Criminal Justice Act 1991 219
6 CONCLUSION 220
CHAPTER 11 Conclusion 222
1 THE POLITICAL NATURE OF JURIDICAL INDIVIDUALISM 222
(ⅰ) Psychological individualism 223
(ⅱ) Political individualism 224
2 JURIDICAL INDIVIDUALISM IN THE CRIMINAL LAW 225
3 CRIMINAL LAW AS PRAXIOLOGY 231
Notes 234
Bibliography 253
Index 265
Index of names 271