Citation

Wilson W. Legal Stud. 1991; 11(2): 207-210.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1991, Society of Legal Scholars, Publisher John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

10.1111/j.1748-121X.1991.tb00558.x

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Professor Williams calls me a malcontent. I believe I have an excuse. The law of murder does not do what it should do. Present doctrine allows some who do not deserve the stigma of murder to be convicted, and allows others who do deserve the stigma to avoid it. This, in my view, is a failure of justice - of fairness. It is the result of judges, academics, and others believing that problems in the real world cannot be resolved by internally consistent legal rules. They are pragmatists. My plea for rationality in murder is nothing more pretentious than a repudiation of such pragmatism. It is a plea that the substantive purposes of the law of murder should find expression in formally rational doctrine.

Language: en