Beyond the Justification/Excuse Dichotomy
This chapter discusses the strain in criminal law theory created by the assumption that all substantive defences — those that entitle a defendant to an acquittal as a matter of justice — can be categorised as either a justification or an excuse. A number of pleas that clearly show a defendant does not deserve to be punished resist simple classification within the traditional defence hierarchy. Antony Duff suggests in Answering for Crime that problems involving putative justification require a new defence — the warranted — to supplement those of justification and excuse. The chapter develops his original idea by examining additional kinds of cases in which further distinctions are helpful.
Keywords: justification, excuse, defense, putative justification, desert, punishment, liability
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