LJST 20
MURDER
Spring 2005
Professor
Clark 101
adsarat@amherst.edu
Office Hours: Wednesdays 4:15-5:30 & Fridays 3:30-5:30
“[T]he act of murder is...an act of liberation-in every sense. Liberation from conventions, liberation from society, liberation from oneself and from God. It is the supreme act that destroys the status quo, whatever that may be. It...liberates man from the determinism of the material universe, as the point at which- irremediably-man opts for his own freedom...The act of murder is the absolute dividing-line between the material and the transcendental, the profane and the sacred. Once crossed, the past no longer has any relevant existence, time ceases; the future is an open choice, and the necessity for choice has itself been freely chosen.... [T]he murderer...has set himself up as a god....Like God, he has stopped the passage of time....Like God, he has destroyed one order, only to give himself the freedom to create a new world and a new order, in which he himself is he controlling will....”
Richard Coe, “Murder and Metaphysics”
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Murder is the most serious offense against the legal order and is subject to its most punitive responses. It gives meaning to law by establishing the limits of law’s authority and its capacity to tame violence. Murder is, in addition, a persistent motif in literature and popular culture used to organize narratives of heroism and corruption, good and evil, fate and irrational misfortune. This course considers murder in law, literature and popular culture.
We will begin by examining the legal definition of homicide and comparing that crime with other killings which law condemns (e.g. assisted suicide) as well as those it tolerates or itself carries out. We will explore various types of murders (from “ordinary murder” to serial killing and genocide) and ask how, if at all, those who kill are different from those who do not. Should murder be understood as an act of defiant freedom or simply of moral depravity? In addition, we will analyze the prevalence of murder in American urban life as well as its various cultural representations. Can such representations ever adequately capture murder, the murderer, and the fear that both arouse? How is murder commodified and consumed in popular culture? What is the significance of such commodification and consumption in law’s own narratives of murder? Throughout, we will ask what we can learn about law and culture from the way both imagine, represent, and respond to murder.
Books are available for purchase at the Jeffrey Amherst College store:
· Wendy Lesser, Pictures at An Execution
· Truman Capote, In Cold Blood
· William Shakespeare, Macbeth
· Albert Camus, The Stranger
· Primo Levi, The Drowned and The Saved
·
Hannah Arendt, Eichmann in
Jerusalem
·
The other course material is available in a xeroxed packet which may be purchased at the Department of Law, Jurisprudence & Social Thought office in 208 Clark House, Ext. 2380, between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m.
I.
Introduction
Genesis, chapters 21 and 22 [Abraham and Isaac]
Queen v. Dudley & Stephens
A. “Ordinary” Murder in the American Imagination
“A Week in the Death of America,” Newsweek, August 15, 1994
Robert Herbert, “Saturated with Violence,” The New York Times, October 28, 2002
FILM: Menace 2 Society – January 28 at 4:00 & 7:30 p.m. in MERRILL 2
Wendy Lesser, Pictures at an Execution, 1-10, 14-23, 47-120, 135-155, 223-261
FILM: Bowling for Columbine – February 2 at 4:00 & 7:30 p.m. in MERRILL 2
B. “Extraordinary” Murder: Learning to Live with Terrorism
Slavoj Zizek, “The Desert of the Real,” In These Times, October 29, 2001
Eli Zaretsky, “Trauma and Dereification: September 11 and the Problem of Ontological Security,” 9 Constellations (2002), 98-105
Michael Ignatieff, “Human Rights and Terror,” John J. McCloy Lecture, Amherst College, September 2002
C. Recovering the Language of Good and Evil in Our Response to Ordinary and Extraordinary Murder
George W. Bush, “Address to the Nation on
the September 11 Attacks,” “National Day of Prayer and Remembrance Service,”
“Address to a Joint Session of Congress,” “Department of Defense Service of
Remembrance,” and “Remarks on the U.S.S. Enterprise on Pearl Harbor
Day”
Samuel Pillsbury, “Evil and the Law of
Murder,” 24 University of California Law Review, 437-488
III. What Is Murder?: Legal Definitions
A. Murder 1: Malice, Premeditation, and the Cold Blooded Killer
Commonwealth v. Webster, 59 Mass. 295 (1850), 295-314
Fisher v. U.S., 328 U.S. 463
Austin v. U.S., 382 F2d 129-140, 143-149
Benjamin Cardozo, Law and Literature, 96-101
FILM: Strangers on a Train, February 11 at 4 and 7:30, MERRILL 2
Truman Capote, In Cold Blood (P)
David Luckenbill, "Criminal Homicide as a Situated Transaction”
B. Provocation, Heat of Passion
Commonwealth v. Schnopps, 383 Mass. 170 (1980)
State v. Shane, 590 N.E. 2d. 272 (1992)
Director of Public Prosecutions v. Camplin, 2 A11 ER 168 (1978)
Regina v. Ly, 33 C.C.C. (3d) 31 (1987)
C. The Murderer Who Fails: On the Law of Criminal Attempts
State v. Hinkhouse, 912 P. 2d 921 (1996)
State v. Kimbrough, 924 S.W. 2d 888 (1996)
State v. Mitchell, 71 S.W. 175 (1902)
People v. Dlugash, 363 N.E. 2d 419 (1977)
Lawrence Becker, “Criminal Attempt and the Theory of the Law of Crimes,” Philosophy and Public Affairs (1974), 262-294
Michael Sokolove, “Should John Hinckley Go Free?,” New York Times, (November 16, 2003)
D. Murder Without Killing
Commonwealth v. Lowry, 98 A 2d 733
Commonwealth v. Thomas, 117 A 2d 204
Commonwealth v. Redline, 137 A 2d 472-477, 482-487, 498-502
Tison v. Arizona, 481 U.S. 137-185
E. Excusing Murder
FILM: Thelma and Louise, March 8 at 4 and 7:30, MERRILL 2
State v. Stewart, 763 P 2d 572
People v. Yaklich, 833 P 2d 758
F. At the Boundaries of Murder: Assisted Suicide
People v. Campbell, 335 NW 2d 27
People v. Kevorkian, 517 NW 2d 293
Washington v. Glucksberg, 117 Sct. 2258-2277, 2286-2293, 2304-2310
IV. What Is Murder? -
Motivations and Meanings
A. Dangerous Desires: Lust and Jealousy
FILM: Body Heat, March 22 at 4 and 7:30, MERRILL 2
Tolstoy, “Kreutzer Sonata”
B. Dangerous Desires: Blind Ambition
William
Shakespeare, Macbeth (P)
C. Righteousness and Vengeance
Jack Katz, Seductions of Crime, 12-22, 31-51
FILM: Unforgiven, March 31 at 4 and 7:30, MERRILL 2
D. Motiveless Murder
FILM: Rope, April 5 at 4 and 7:30, MERRILL 2
Albert Camus, The Stranger (P)
V.
To Capture the Killer:
Detection and Detective Fiction
FILM: The Vanishing, April 7 at 4 and 7:30, MERRILL 2
Edgar Allan Poe, “The Murders At the Rue Morgue”
Peter Huhn, “Detective As Reader”
VI. Beyond 'Ordinary'
Murder
A. Multiple Murder and Serial Killing
FILM: Silence of the Lambs, April 12 at 4 and 7:30, MERRILL 2
Bidart, “Herbert White”
Alec Wilkinson, “Conversations With a Killer”
Elliott Leyton, Compulsive Killers: The Story of Modern Multiple Murder, 15-34
B. Genocide
FILM: Schindler’s List, April 14 at 4 and 7:30, MERRILL 2
Primo Levi, The Drowned and the Saved, 11-21, 36-60, 70-85, 105-126, 149-166,
198-203 (P)
Berel Lang, Act and Idea in Nazi Genocide, 3-56, 62-77
Hannah Arendt,
Eichmann in Jerusalem, 3-12, 21-111, 135-150, 206-219, 234-252, 267-279,
287-294 (P)
Walter Berns, For Capital Punishment, 153-176
Albert Camus, “Reflections of the Guillotine,” 131-156, 168-179
Gregg v. Georgia, 428 U.S. 153-187, 196-198, 206-207, 227-231
Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish, 3-16, 32-35, 45-54
Campbell v. Wood, 18 F. 3d 662-669, 680-685, 687, 692-706, 708-716
Susan Blaustein, “Witness to Another Execution”
FILM: An Execution in Texas, April 30 at 4 and 7:30, MERRILL 2
Herrera v. Collins, 113 S. Ct. 853-870, 876-884
Callins v. Collins, 62 USLW 3546