Criminal Law

Objective To assess how threat imminence shapes public judgments of deadly force used by police and by civilians, and whether the public believes the imminence requirement currently applies to police. -/- Methods We fielded a nationally representative US survey experiment (N = 1,183) that manipulated whether a suspect posed an imminent or non-imminent threat and whether a civilian or police officer faced the decision to use deadly force. Respondents evaluated support for shooting and reported beliefs about relevant legal rules. -/- (...) Results Imminence significantly affected support for deadly force. Although respondents were more supportive of police than civilians using deadly force across conditions, they generally disapproved of shooting a non-imminent threat. Nearly 95% of respondents incorrectly believed that Supreme Court precedent restricts police deadly force to imminent threats. -/- Conclusions The public supports the imminence requirement for police and largely believes it already exists in law. This “imminence divide” between public expectations and legal standards may undermine police legitimacy when officers act lawfully but contrary to public judgment. (shrink)

This paper develops a philosophy-of-law critique of a recurring inferential compression in Fourth Amendment doctrine. The central claim is that courts often move too quickly from an evidentiary signal to a constitutional threshold. In the specific case of narcotics-detection dogs, an alert is frequently treated as though it supplies probable cause, or as though it reveals only contraband. This paper argues that such reasoning obscures several distinct propositions: that an alert occurred, that odor was detected, that contraband may be or (...) may have been associated with a location, that contraband is presently located there, and that the constitutional threshold for search or seizure has been satisfied. These propositions are not logically equivalent. The paper formalizes the distinction between an indicator and a threshold, then applies the frame- work to reasonable suspicion, probable cause, dog-sniff doctrine, and the problem of retroactive bootstrapping. The result is not a claim that dog alerts can never contribute to probable cause, but rather that Fourth Amendment reasoning should require explicit inferential validity between signal, suspicion, probability, and legal authorization. (shrink)

The traditional account of the criminal trial holds that its fundamental purpose is to search for the truth—that is, the truth of whether the accused factually committed the alleged crime. However, purely truth-seeking accounts, as well as more nuanced side-constraint and pluralist accounts, fail to adequately explain the relationship between the epistemic principles and those of political morality shaping the criminal trial. In response, this article proposes that we understand the criminal trial first and foremost in terms of its purpose (...) as a public procedure concerned with the legitimate use of coercive state powers against a particular person. Specifically, the criminal trial is a procedure that calls upon the state to provide a public justification for exercising its criminal law powers to convict and punish the accused. This account preserves the importance of establishing factual guilt because doing so is an essential part of the state’s justificatory burden. (shrink)

Marin Sabau, imputado por varios crímenes y detenido en un hospital penitenciario, solicitó y recibió la ayuda médica para morir a causa de una tetraplejia en el 2022 pese a la oposición legal de sus víctimas. Este capítulo busca identificar los elementos que permitieron que la eutanasia de una persona en detención se considerara jurídicamente aceptable en España. Con este objetivo, estudiaremos los requisitos legales para recibir la eutanasia, así como los argumentos de los abogados de las víctimas y las (...) decisiones de los distintos órganos judiciales. Una vez hecho esto, observaremos la relevancia de que la eutanasia tenga la calidad de prestación sanitaria en este tipo de casos. (shrink)

This article provides a justification for the often-criticized tort of malicious prosecution. It begins by discussing the Supreme Court of Canada’s malicious prosecution caselaw and by reconstructing the Court’s expressed policy-based account of the tort. This policy-based account raises three concerns: (1) it renders the malice standard arbitrary, (2) it fails to explain why malicious prosecutors should be held accountable as a matter of private rather than public law, and (3) it leaves the source of the plaintiff’s private right mysterious. (...) However, the Court’s jurisprudence supports a more principled account, specifically one that focuses on the nature and limits of a prosecutor’s public office. This office-based account responds to the above concerns while affirming the Court’s view that malice is the correct standard of fault and, more generally, that malicious prosecution is a distinctly private wrong. (shrink)

O presente artigo analisa a decisão do Habeas Corpus 126.292 pelo Supremo Tribunal Federal, que resultou na procedência da execução provisória da pena e na relativização da presunção de inocência. Levanta-se a problemática da viabilidade da relativização e sua categorização no ordenamento jurídico. Examina-se esse instituto jurídico como direito fundamental, apresentando a interpretação constitucional e a tipologia das normas jurídicas, segundo a teoria dos direitos fundamentais de Alexy. Utiliza-se de pesquisa bibliográfica para uma análise exploratória e qualitativa do tema. Assim, (...) se revela o duplo caráter da presunção de inocência, demonstrando a sua natureza híbrida como norma jurídica. (shrink)

The idea that police should prioritize protecting life seems obvious. Many use-of-force policies already endorse the principle. But despite general support for this principle in and out of policing, figuring out what exactly it means in practice proves far more challenging. In Protecting Life, Ben Jones takes up that challenge and provides strategies for navigating it. High-profile, controversial killings in recent years remind us that too often police fall short in their obligations to protect life. The problem goes deeper than (...) a few bad apples. Law, policy, and training entrench practices that result in avoidable killings, which hit marginalized groups the hardest. Importantly, how police use deadly force is intertwined with questions of distributive justice. That insight differentiates Protecting Life in its approach to the ethics of police deadly force. It develops a framework to evaluate police deadly force at the individual and institutional level, with close attention to concerns voiced by Black Lives Matter on how policing contributes to structural injustices in society. The book's extensive engagement with social science research reveals ways to translate bedrock moral principles into policy. Ultimately, its conclusions push readers to rethink the state's obligations to those most vulnerable to police violence--particularly, disadvantaged racial groups and persons with mental illness. (shrink)

High-speed vehicular flight from law enforcement constitutes one of the most persistently underaddressed forms of public endangerment in contemporary American criminal law. This treatise advances a philosophical and legal argument for the enactment of the Vehicular Public Endangerment Act (VPEA), a proposed standalone penal statute that classifies the use of a motor vehicle in flight from law enforcement as the deployment of a deadly weapon against the general public. Drawing from moral philosophy, criminal law theory, constitutional jurisprudence, and public safety (...) data, this work argues that existing legal frameworks inadequately address the compounding harm that fleeing suspects impose upon innocent motorists and bystanders. The proposed statute introduces a per-vehicle endangerment model, in which each civilian vehicle placed in direct peril constitutes a separate criminal count, analogous to the established legal treatment of discharging a firearm in a populated area. The treatise defends three central premises: (a) a motor vehicle operated at high speed in flight from law enforcement constitutes a lethal instrument under established deadly weapon doctrine; (b) continued flight beyond 100 feet of a lawful command to stop demonstrates willful intent to endanger the public, warranting a conclusive presumption of mens rea; and (c) proportional, compounding penalties calibrated to speed increments and the number of vehicles endangered are both philosophically just and practically necessary for deterrence. The proposed statute is designed for immediate legislative enactment and is accompanied by full statutory text, philosophical justification, and a substantive counterargument analysis. (shrink)

Este número da revista Anatomia do Crime é especial. Presta uma homenagem surpresa à sua Directora, a Professora Maria Fernanda Palma. Fugindo à formalidade das homenagens institucionais (que, naturalmente, também têm o seu lugar), buscámos um tom de familiaridade: convidámos a participarem autores que foram alunos da Professora e com ela depois trabalharam ou mantiveram alguma ligação – tenha sido colaborando em funções docentes, desenvolvendo projectos de investigação sob sua orientação ou partilhando responsabilidades de outra ordem. E abrangemos gerações com (...) amplitude suficiente para ilustrar como os ensinamentos resistiram ao tempo, tanto na renovação de rostos como na constância das ligações. (shrink)

Resolution Ethics explains justice through the structure of authored resolution under exposure. When wrongdoing occurs, the ethical task is not to “balance suffering,” but to preserve civic order, repair standing, and maintain the conditions under which agents can resolve safely across time. This paper develops a telic model of justice: a two-horizon framework in which short-horizon responses establish public closure through mandatory prosecution, finite punishment, and restitution, while long-horizon responses govern the future through conditional supervision, risk reduction, and reintegration. Punishment (...) is justified only insofar as it reduces systemic noise—restoring legibility, reaffirming violated norms, and preventing private enforcement—while remaining constrained by proportionality, equal application, and due process. Victim repair and state authority are treated as distinct obligations, neither of which can substitute for the other. Telic Justice therefore rejects both retributivist excess and permissive decay, offering a structured account of punishment, repair, and forgiveness as instruments for the preservation of legitimate public order. (shrink)

One influential approach to distinguishing individual evidence from statistical evidence in legal epistemology is the sensitivity account, proposed by Enoch, Spectre, and Fisher (2012. “Statistical Evidence, Sensitivity, and the Legal Value of Knowledge.” Philosophy & Public Affairs 40 (3): 197–224). More recently, Günther (2024. “Epistemic Sensitivity and Evidence.” Inquiry 67 (6): 1348–1366) has advanced a revised version – the epistemic sensitivity account – claimed to improve upon Enoch et al.’s original proposal. In particular, it is argued that the account not (...) only distinguishes between statistical and individual evidence, but also, unlike Enoch et al.’s account, accommodates the possibility of acceptable erroneous verdicts. In this paper, I present three objections against epistemic sensitivity and conclude that it fails on both counts. (shrink)

Çağdaş ceza hukukunda fail ceza hukuku kavramı kaçınılması gereken sınırları belirleyen olumsuz bir rehber ilke gibi işlev görür. En basit anlatımla, bu kavram hukuk sistemlerinin ceza sorumluluğunu faili değil, fiili esas alarak oluşturması gerektiğini vaaz eder. Öğreti ise fail ceza hukukunu fiil ceza hukukunun karşıt konumuna yerleştirerek iki kutuplu bir kurgu ortaya koyar. Bu makale bahsi geçen iki kutuplu kurguya yönelik bir dizi kuşkuyu dile getiriyor. Şahsi cezasızlık sebepleri ve cezayı kaldıran şahsi sebepler dahil olmak üzere bazı hukuki kurumların fail (...) odaklı biçimde şekillendiğini belirterek fail ceza hukukunun zorunlulukla yasak ilke gibi ele alınmayabileceğini iddia ediyor. Bu iddianın kabulü halinde ise şu iki sonucun doğduğunu ileri sürüyor. Birincisi, fail ceza hukuku sadece negatif bir rehber ilke gibi fonksiyon icra etmez. Aksine, bazen bazı hukuki kurumları betimlemek için kullanılabilir. İkincisi, fiil-fail ceza hukuku dikotomisi terk edilmelidir. Onun yerine, çağdaş ceza adaleti pratiklerine dair kavrayışımızı derinleştirmek için daha kompleks sorumluluk modelleri keşfedilmelidir. Makale karakter ve tehlike sorumluluğu kavramlarını ortaya koyarak iki farklı sorumluluk modelinin daha mevcut olduğunu belirtiyor. Bu iki sorumluluk modelinde fiil ilkesi tamamen terk edilmezken bütünüyle fail ceza hukukuna yaklaşılmaz. Eş deyişle, karakter ve tehlike ceza hukuku fail ve fiil ceza hukuku arasında yer alan sorumluluk modelleridir. (shrink)

Is the death penalty definitively a question of the past? Although over 140 countries have abolished the death penalty in law or practice, around 55 states still retain and, in some cases, actively use it. This book offers a rigorous introduction in three parts: first, a systematic examination of the two major penal philosophies (retributivism and utilitarianism) and their relation to capital punishment; second, a broad contextualization of contemporary debates, especially in the Anglo-American world; and third, a critical reflection on (...) the compatibility of the death penalty with the principles of a democratic rule-of-law state. The inquiry culminates in two philosophical commentaries on Beccaria and Kant, foundational figures whose opposition still shapes the contours of this debate. While the author does not conceal an abolitionist commitment, he engages seriously with opposing arguments in order to shed philosophical light on a major issue of contemporary justice. -/- . (shrink)

When we learn that someone holds irrational beliefs, we often respond by reducing our epistemic trust in them. In this paper, I will propose a novel account of such trust reductions. The recently popular relationship-modification account (RMA) of epistemic blame will serve as a foil for this project. RMA says that epistemically blaming others for their epistemic failings involves modifying our epistemic relationships with them, paradigmatically via a reduction of epistemic trust. RMA has recently faced two challenges of extensional inadequacy, (...) which I will show result from a mistaken view about what type of response trust reductions are. I will draw on resources from legal theory to show that trust reductions bear all the hallmarks of so-called non-punitive measures, which serve preventative collective purposes. I will argue for an account of trust reductions as non-punitive epistemic measures that serve the purpose of preventing unreliable informants from negatively affecting the epistemic commons. My account explains when and why it is appropriate to reduce epistemic trust and shows where RMA goes wrong. (shrink)

A great deal of common law jurisprudence—especially within criminal and constitutional law—treats an agent’s control as a primary (though not the sole) factor in determining the scope of the agent’s reasonable expectation of privacy. We raise a new philosophical challenge for this ‘control theorist’ approach. The challenge concerns a class of cases in which it seems that an agent both loses control over information and retains a reasonable expectation of privacy with respect to that information. Faced with our challenge, some (...) will abandon the control theorist’s tight link between privacy and control. We instead use the challenge to motivate a more refined account of the relationship between privacy and control on behalf of the control theorists. By refining an existing framework for adjudicating privacy’s scope, we show how the control theorist’s connection between privacy and control, far from being an impediment to robust privacy protections in a digital world, potentially provides an elegant tool for extending privacy’s scope. (shrink)

This paper explores the relevance of psychiatric diagnoses to responsibility assessments, with a focus on criminal law. There is wide agreement that certain mental disorders and developmental conditions may impact one's capacity for responsible agency, but whether a diagnosis itself is relevant—and if so, how—remains unclear and controversial. A psychiatric diagnosis carries information about the mental differences or symptoms a person with that diagnosis might experience. Because of this, we argue that diagnoses are relevant to responsibility when they pick out (...) symptoms or differences that are likely to undermine the specific capacities that matter for responsibility. We claim that where there is enough empirical evidence about the impact of a diagnosis on legal agency, a criminal court must investigate whether a defendant ought to be fully or partially excused. Intellectual disability is this sort of diagnosis. Evidence that a person has intellectual disability at the time of their wrongful act does not automatically settle the question of their responsibility, but this diagnosis requires that the court investigate the nature and degree of responsibility-relevant differences and symptoms experienced by that person at the time of the act in question. (shrink)

This first volume in the four-volume series The Moral Limits of the Criminal Law focuses on the "harm principle," the commonsense view that prevention of harm to persons other than the perpetrator is a legitimate purpose of criminal legislation. Feinberg presents a detailed analysis of the concept and definition of harm and applies it to a host of practical and theoretical issues, showing how the harm principle must be interpreted if it is to be a plausible guide to the lawmaker.

We introduce in this paper an AI-based Legal Assistant that can assist law enforcement agencies in India. The system applies Natural Language Processing (NLP) to discover applicable sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), produce FIRs, and carry out automatic legal referencing. Developed using Rasa, Python, FastAPI, and MySQL, the assistant presents an easy-to-use chatbot interface that improves the accuracy and efficiency of legal operations, particularly during field investigations. The system encourages efficiency, compliance with the law, and transparency during the (...) policing procedure. It illustrates how contemporary technologies can help bridge the distinction between theoretical knowledge of the law and applied enforcement. (shrink)

Criminal Law and Criminal Justice: Morals and Policy goes beyond the traditional criminal law textbook and invites students to question why we criminalise certain behaviour and whether the decisions made by the courts can be justified according to legal principle, morals and policy. Providing an overview not only of the legal doctrine of criminal law, but also of the underpinning theory behind the legal doctrine, the book encourages critical thinking around the context behind, and implementation of, legal decisions. It applies (...) this to current issues, such as respect for personal autonomy, prevention of domestic abuse and discouraging gang activity, whilst providing a clear overview of the law relating to actus reus, mens rea, property offences, homicide, non-fatal offences, sexual offences, accessorial liability, and defences. Using hypothetical scenarios, students will develop an understanding of why certain rules exist and then be able to critically analyse why certain behaviour is criminalised. An in-depth study of several key cases will show how the rules and theory play out in practice, and students will examine how morals and policy have influenced these decisions. Featuring thinking points as well as further reading suggestions, this textbook is suitable for all students of criminal law, as well as for those studying jurisprudence. (shrink)

The centrality of intention for criminal law is virtually undisputed. The role of motive is equally solidified, though for the converse reason: while intention is seen as the hallmark of criminal responsibility, motive is commonly held to be irrelevant. The aim of my paper is to question this received wisdom. Contrary to the existing literature, however, I do not premise my critique on normative considerations. Instead, I advance an argument in favour of motive’s relevance to criminal liability that is grounded (...) in an action-theoretic appraisal of the very nature of motive itself. Over the course of the paper, I situate their role and function in criminal law, before proposing a novel account of how we are to best understand what motives are. My account – according to which motives are ‘focal desires’ – is not only able to unify the many guises motives take in the law but also illustrates why they are, at least sometimes, relevant to criminal liability. (shrink)

Plea bargaining in criminal cases is a process whereby the accused and the prosecution work out a mutually satisfactory disposition of the case, subject to court approval (daan vs. Sandiganbayan, g.R. Nos. 163972-77). The supreme court (sc) has issued new guidelines that enhanced and clarified plea bargaining in illegal drug cases where an accused seeks to plead guilty to a lesser offense for a lighter penalty. The purpose of the study is to assess the impact of plea bargaining agreements on (...) drug police operations in sta. Mesa police station, manila. The respondents were PNP personnel of sta. Mesa police station (ps-8) currently and formerly designated as station drug enforcement unit and selected barangay anti-drug abuse council (badac) members wherein persons who availed plea bargaining reside were the respondents of the study. The area of study was done at sta. Mesa police station (ps-8), manila. Santa Mesa is a district in Manila, Philippines. It was found out that the PNP personnel assessed believed that the persons who entered plea bargaining agreements have fully supported the police officers in drug police operations. An operational plan was developed to increase support for the plea bargaining agreement among arrested drug suspects. (shrink)

The role of intention in criminal law stands in stark contrast to that of motive. While intention’s significance for criminal liability is hardly ever contested, motive’s relevance is most frequently relegated to the peripheries. This is, I believe, a mistake, and I hope to amend it by providing a novel argument in favour of motive’s relevance to criminal liability: an argument premised not on normative considerations, but on the very nature of motive itself. An agent’s motives, I will argue, are (...) her ‘focal desires’. Desires, as I will illustrate in turn, are psychological dispositions that manifest in goal-directed behavior aimed at satisfying the object of the desire, and an agent’s focal desires are those desires whose satisfaction denotes the completion of the action-process the agent aims to undertake. The paper will conclude with a brief outlook as to the implications of these findings to criminal law. (shrink)

According to a prominent family of theories of blameworthiness, quality of will theories, a person is blameworthy for an action if and only if, and to the degree that, her will manifested in that action is bad. A puzzle for such theories is that (the degree of) blameworthiness appears to be affected by several factors beyond how bad the manifested will is. Among such factors are certain types of incompetence of the agent, the outcome of the action, the developmental history (...) of the agent (e.g., an unfortunate upbringing), and the time between action and blame. I defend a novel account of the nature of blame by appeal to its unique capacity to explain away these puzzling intuitions in a unified way. I argue that the account, in addition to being independently plausible, allows us to view those intuitions as products of a systematic yet understandable confusion between the issue of blameworthiness and some other separate issue. (shrink)

The evolution of the understanding of evidence-based proof and decision processes in the law, especially criminal law, and standards of proof in this area, has a longstanding and controversial history. Competing accounts cause the legal scholarship to engage in critical and thoughtful exchanges. Some of the divergent views reflect different methodological perspectives similarly recognized in other fields, such as applied psychology and economy, and the broader interdisciplinary research fields of judgment and decision-making, system analysis and decision science. One such methodological (...) perspective asserts that accounts of juridical proof should provide a description and explanation of how the legal system actually works as a whole. Other—more mathematical and analytical accounts—concentrate on how, ideally, legal decision-making under uncertainty ought to be made in order be considered sensible. This paper focuses on the relative plausibility (RP) account advocated by Professors Allen and Pardo as an example of the former perspective. Its logical structure and argumentative implications are analysed using elements of decision theory, which is the prime representative of the latter, more mathematical approach to legal proof. Using formal diagrammatic schemes to depict the structural relationships between the core elements of the two accounts, it is demonstrated in what sense they can be considered logically related and congruent. The demonstration shows that the principal disagreements among the proponents of the two examined theories derive from differences in (1) the criteria used to judge the adequacy of competing accounts of legal decision-making, and (2) the level of formalization of the bases of decisions in each candidate account. This structural analysis supports the view that adherence to one or the other of the examined perspectives does not imply a contradiction, but reflects the coverage of different aspects of the same overall decision architecture. Using decision-theoretic notions, our analyses also provide a way to explain RP decisions through an explicit criterion, thus providing a reply to the recurrent critique that RP theory lacks specific means to justify its decisional framework. (shrink)

Una de las estrategias legislativas más extendidas en el ámbito penal es la de establecer límites mínimos y límites máximos para cada delito. De esta manera, al momento de determinar la pena para el caso en concreto, los jueces utilizan estos límites como guías de menor o mayor reproche por la conducta cometida. Entre los elementos en los que se apoyan los jueces para esta determinación se encuentran la culpabilidad del agente al momento de cometer el hecho y la lesividad (...) de su conducta delictiva. Sin embargo, existen ciertos casos en los cuales la pena mínima se muestra desproporcionada con el reproche que merece el agente. En particular, en este trabajo abordaré estas situaciones a fin de reconstruir algunas discusiones existentes en la filosofía jurídica y política. (shrink)

“Voluntas ut ratio. Sullo statuto della volontà nel diritto penale” è una monografia di diritto penale rivolta agli studiosi della materia, agli avvocati, ai magistrati e ai pratici del diritto. Dopo avere recuperato le radici della “volontà” e della “libertà” nel pensiero occidentale ed avere esaminato la curvatura riduzionistica tipica della filosofia e della criminalistica moderne, l’Autore di Voluntas ut ratio affida al penalista di oggi alcune riflessioni circa i dogmi del comportamentismo psicologico e la successiva riemersione della volontà e (...) della libertà nella psicologia contemporanea. All’esito dell’indagine, Mauro Ronco formula alcune originali conclusioni sul ruolo della libertà nel diritto penale, sull’imputazione come presupposto di responsabilità, sulla c.d. “colpevolezza normativa” (nozione sottoposta a serrata critica dogmatica), sulla capacità di imputazione e sul carattere essenzialmente deficitario della volontà e della libertà umane, con alcune proposte conclusive in chiave construens. (shrink)

Title 18 §2103 of the Pennsylvania Consolidated Statutes forbids me from insulting the Pennsylvania flag. Title 42 §5552 forbids Pennsylvania’s prosecutors from holding me accountable now for insul...

This article advances an explanatory model of the academic and policy debate on AI as legal persons. It argues that the scientific and regulatory debate on AI as legal persons undergoes periods of relative stability interrupted by rapid paradigm shifts. Three interrelated factors primarily influence these oscillations: (1) competing theories of legal personhood (clustered versus singularist), (2) capability, embodiment, and commercial reach of AI technology, and (3) AI's integration within socio-digital institutions. Two additional forces modulate the depth and durability of (...) any shift: (4) the overlap and internal consistency of cross‑domain legal regimes (data protection, agency, liability, cybersecurity); and (5) the body of judicial precedents (or their scarcity) on extending personhood. Specific convergences of these factors create pressure for status reconsideration; absent them, equilibrium returns. Current EU law and case practice are explained by partial convergence—capability/diffusion surges and some cluster‑theory uptake without sufficiently embedding AI in rights‑bearing institutional roles—and by the damping effect of dense, interlocking legal regimes, plus scarce and negative judicial precedents. Case law suggests that, without explicit legislation, courts are unlikely to grant AI legal personhood on their own. Prospective movement would require demonstrable de facto social personhood: sustained, role‑based participation within socio-digital institutions that creates governance gaps that existing doctrines cannot internalize. The article concludes by assessing near- and long‑term prospects — from generative AI, autonomous agents, social robots, and digital twins to brain–machine interface — highlighting conditional pathways rather than deterministic trajectories. (shrink)

“Jury Nullification, Verdictal Asymmetry, and the Ultimate Logic of Anarchy” is a critical examination and analysis of the ‘anarchy objection’ to jury nullification, a common argument against informing juries of their nullification power. The anarchy objection posits that jury nullification leads to inconsistent verdicts (verdictal asymmetry) and, as a result, social anarchy and chaos. Through careful analysis, I argue that the anarchy objection is predicated on two flawed premises: first, that jury nullification promotes verdictal asymmetry, and second, that such asymmetry (...) leads to anarchy. Such commitments are, I argue, empirically unsupported and conceptually misguided. Verdictal asymmetry is an intrinsic feature of the common law system, present at nearly every adjudicative stage, and not uniquely linked to jury nullification; yet we certainly do not live in an environment of jural/social anarchy. Finally, I discuss how the principle of treating like cases alike is primarily a procedural constraint, not a mandate for verdictal symmetry. By dismantling the anarchy objection, I aim to contribute to a deeper understanding of the jurisprudence surrounding the jury nullification debate and its role within the legal system. (shrink)