Victims' Rights and Victims' Wrongs: Comparative Liability in Criminal Law

By Vera Bergelson

"Don't blame the victim" is a cornerstone maxim of Anglo-American jurisprudence, but should the law generally ignore a victim's behavior in determining a defendant's liability? Victims' Rights and Victims' Wrongs criticizes the current criminal law approach and outlines a more fair, coherent, and efficient set of rules to recognize that victims sometimes co-author their own losses or injuries.

Evaluating a number of controversial cases involving euthanasia, sadomasochism, date rape, battered wives, and "innocent" aggressors, Vera Bergelson builds a theoretical foundation for reform. Her approach to comparative criminal liability takes into account the actions of both the perpetrator and the victim and offers a unitary explanation for consent, self-defense, and provocation. This innovative book supplies a practical and coherent mechanism for evaluating the impact of a victim's conduct on a perpetrator's liability in a variety of circumstances, including those that are now artificially excluded from comparative analysis.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0804755388
• ISBN13: 9780804755382
• Release Date: August 2009
• Publisher: Stanford Law Books
• Length: 248 Pages
• Weight: 1.05 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.1" x 9.1"