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- Title
STRICTISSIMI JURIS.
- Authors
Morrison, Steven R.
- Abstract
Courts and scholars uniformly reject guilt by association, but couch it only as the substantive due process right to individual, not group, liability. They have never set forth the procedural right that is necessary to support the substantive right. This Article establishes that procedural right by bringing to light the little-known rule o f strictissimi juris. Strictissimi juris (strictissimi) operates to separate the individual from her group to ensure that criminal liability attaches for individual, not imputed, conduct and mens rea. Strictissimi's promise, however, has gone unfulfilled. While courts and defendants often invoke strictissimi, the courts have never determined when exactly it should apply or what its application entails. As a result, strictissimi has never had the impact it is supposed to have. This Article calls on courts and lawyers for the first time to apply strictissimi in a concrete, predictable way. It supports that call by providing strictissimi's exegesis in descriptive, prescriptive, and contextual ways. Descriptively, it provides the jurisprudential foundation and definition of strictissimi. Prescriptively, it sets forth the purposes for which lawyers and courts have invoked strictissimi, thus providing a guide for how future lawyers might invoke strictissimi, and courts apply it. Contextually, it analogizes strictissimi to substantive canons that play important roles in the separation of powers.
- Subjects
UNITED States; GUILT (Law); LEGAL procedure; CRIMINAL liability; JURISPRUDENCE; SEPARATION of powers
- Publication
Alabama Law Review, 2015, Vol 67, Issue 1, p247
- ISSN
0002-4279
- Publication type
Article