Number of words: 2,654 We are stealing nature from our children. Now, when I say this, I don’t mean that we are destroying nature that they will have wanted us to preserve, although that is unfortunately also the case. What I mean here is that we’ve started to define nature in a way that’s so purist and so strict that under … Read more

Number of words: 286 Under an older and today much weakend view of the nature of law, each such question had a “right” and a “wrong” answer; the “right law” was somehow there, to be discovered or found by the correct use of technical reasoning. Among some lawyers and among some other people, this is … Read more

Number of words: 458 Mostcapital offences are unbailable, or bail is set so high as to be absolutely inaccessible to any but the affluent. This means that in the capital case every kind of activity outside the jail – the marshalling of testimony, the verification of facts – must be carried on by somebody other … Read more

Number of words: 562 First it must be noted that what we are talking about is not whether the threat of punishment deters people from crime. The question, much more specific than that, is whether the threat of death is of significantly greater deterrent force than the threat of long imprisonment. How does this question … Read more

Number of words: 100 If the prosecutor, having charged a capital crime, is nevertheless willing top accept a plea of guilty to a lesser offense, then the defendant has in turn the choice of accepting or rejecting this offer. This dreadful choice has to be made by a man in custody, often disoriented and frightened … Read more