Recycled Malice

by Findlay Stark

Criminal lawyers accept a doctrine of transferred malice, but while doing so, also seem to accept that in so being transferred, malice can be multiplied, such that a person who intended to harm one other person can find themselves convicted of intentionally harming several people. In this post, I argue that ‘recycling malice’ in this way is inappropriate, and that this conclusion casts doubt even on the logic of the more accepted doctrine of transferred malice.

Motive and Criminal Liability

by Levin Güver

Is motive irrelevant to criminal liability? That’s the standard mantra, but in this post, I argue that there is reason to doubt its accuracy. In fact, the very nature of ‘motive’ is more complicated than one might assume, and getting clearer on it generates insights into motive’s relevance for criminal liability.