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Author Finkel, Norman J.

Title Commonsense justice : jurors' notions of the law / Norman J. Finkel
Published Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press, 1995

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Description 1 online resource (390 pages)
Contents In search of community sentiment -- Understandigng nullification -- Revealing jurors' sentiments -- How jurors construct reality -- Objectivity versus subjectivity in the law -- The sacred precinct of the bedroom -- The right to die -- Cruel and unusual punishment -- Murther most foul -- Death is different -- The juvenile death penalty -- On self-defense justice -- The self-defense drama -- The maddening changes in insanity law -- How jurors construe insanity -- Murderous passions, mitigating sentiments -- The path of commonsense justice
Summary Norman J. Finkel explores the relationship between the law on the books, as set down in the Constitution and developed in cases and decisions, and what he calls commonsense justice, the ordinary citizen's notions of what is just and fair
Law is an essentially human endeavour, a collection of psychological theories about why people think, feel, and behave as they do, and when and why we should find some of them blameworthy and punishable. But is it independent of community sentiment, as some would contend? Or do juries bring the community's judgment to bear on the moral blameworthiness of the defendant? When jurors decide that the law is unfair, or the punishment inappropriate for a particular defendant, they have sometimes nullified the law-not to defeat legal authority but "to perfect and complete" it. In this book, Norman J. Finkel explores the relationship between the "law on the books," as set down in the Constitution and developed in cases and decisions, and what he calls "commonsense justice," the ordinary citizen's notions of what is just and fair
Analysis Justice
United States
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references (pages 339-381) and index
Notes Master and use copy. Digital master created according to Benchmark for Faithful Digital Reproductions of Monographs and Serials, Version 1. Digital Library Federation, December 2002. http://purl.oclc.org/DLF/benchrepro0212 MiAaHDL
English
Print version record
digitized 2010 HathiTrust Digital Library committed to preserve pda MiAaHDL
Subject Law -- United States -- Public opinion
Jury -- United States
Justice.
Common sense.
POLITICAL SCIENCE -- Government -- Judicial Branch.
LAW -- Legal Services.
LAW -- Civil Procedure.
LAW -- General.
Common sense
Jury
Justice
Law -- Public opinion
Juryrechtspraak.
Rechtsgevoel.
United States
Form Electronic book
ISBN 9780674036871
0674036875
0674005562
9780674005563