Malcolm Thorburn

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Justifications, Power, and Authority

117 Yale L.J. 1070 (2008). Criminal law theory made a significant advance roughly thirty years ago when George Fletcher popularized the important conceptual distinction between justifications and excuses. In the intervening years, however, very little progress has been made in exploring the structure and function of justification defenses. The reason for this failure, I suggest, is a widely shared misconception...