Law and Justice

Twelve Absent Men

Rebuilding the American Jury

  • Albert W. Dzur

Responsibility within Frameworks

The appropriateness of blame depends on a person’s attitudes toward others.

  • T. M. Scanlon

Dangerous Alternatives to Blame

We need to be cautious. Alternatives to blame may be even worse.

  • Mike Konczal

Blame Is Crucial for Morality

A commitment to morality requires blame.

  • George Sher

Blame and Christianity

Blame began with the triumph of Christianity.

  • Brian Leiter

Blame Corrupts Criminal Justice System

We are not morally required to blame wrongdoers.

  • Erin Kelly

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Blame Necessary for Law

That we are all perfectly innocent is a radical claim.

  • Gideon Rosen

Blame Derives from Conflicting Ideologies

Blaming holds people responsible for violating rules we have made collectively.

  • Christine M. Korsgaard

Blame Motivates Good Behavior

The thought of being blamed by others can motivate good behavior.

  • Paul Bloom

Beyond Blame

The philosophy of personal responsibility has ruined criminal justice and economic policy. It’s time to move past blame.

  • Barbara H. Fried
with responses from
  • Paul Bloom
  • Christine M. Korsgaard
  • Gideon Rosen
  • Erin Kelly
  • Brian Leiter
  • Adriaan Lanni
  • George Sher
  • Mike Konczal
  • T. M. Scanlon

The Constitution Without the Court

Protecting Americans' Rights Is Not a Job for the Judiciary Alone

  • Pamela S. Karlan

Who Says the NSA’s Metadata Collection Is Legal?

On the limitations of secret judicial review.

  • Elizabeth Goitein

Bloody Abroad

Amanda Knox finds herself.

  • Merve Emre

Justice Postponed in Guatemala

Ríos Montt—and the United States—evade reckoning with the past.

  • Lauren Carasik

Exhuming Neruda

How did Chile’s great poet die?

  • Stephen Phelan

Founding Firearms

Originalism and the Second Amendment

  • Pamela S. Karlan

Martial Flaw

Why Tsarnaev is not an enemy combatant.

  • Elizabeth Goitein

Weak Convictions

Prosecutors Are Freeing the Prisoners They Put Behind Bars

  • Beth Schwartzapfel

Gideon Turns 50

Today, the vast majority of felony defendants depend on appointed counsel to represent them, and the quality of representation varies wildly.

  • Pamela S. Karlan

Who Shot Valerie Finley?

Why One Man’s Innocence Is So Hard To Prove

  • Beth Schwartzapfel

The Day Wikipedia Went Dark

The free Internet will rise or fall on the involvement and ingenuity of the people, not on courts or lawmakers.

  • Edward Lee

Sweet Forgiveness

Debt relief is fair. It would also be good for the economy. Why isn’t it happening? Politics.

  • Mike Konczal
with responses from
  • Dean Baker
  • G. Marcus Cole
  • Tamara Draut
  • Louis Hyman
  • Jacob S. Hacker & Nathaniel Loewentheil
  • Mark A. Calabria
  • Robert C. Hockett
  • Barbara H. Fried

Contempt of Court

When the justices belittle the political branches, they hamper the government’s ability to solve our most pressing problems.

  • Pamela S. Karlan

Empty Benches

When Obama was sworn into office, there were 55 vacancies on the federal bench. There are now more than 75.

  • Pamela S. Karlan
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