罪责的社会化与规范责任论的重构——期待可能性理论命运之反思

当前期待可能性理论研究中的认识误区在于,将期待可能性等同于规范责任论本身.罪责概念并没有固定的连续意义,随着刑法任务观的调整,它经历了重要的意义裂变.罪责的客观化与社会化意味着责任基础的改变,最终引起规范责任论的重构.期待可能性的命运不仅折射出罪责领域所经历的变革,也折射出刑法的整个基本运作框架发生重大转型的事实.     

期待可能性的体系性地位——以罪责构造的变动为线索的考察

期待可能性的体系性地位是期待可能性中的一个重要问题,它关系到责任的规范构造,甚至犯罪论体系的逻辑结构。本文以德日刑法学为背景,讨论了期待可能性的产生过程,由此考察随着期待可能性的出现而发生的罪责的内容变化,以及责任与构成要件之间逻辑关系的变动。本文认为,期待可能性是规范评价要素,它和故意、过失等心理性要素是有所不同的。在司法活动中,心理性的事实判断应当先于评价性的规范判断。但在罪责要件的构造当中,期待可能性是作为积极的归责要素还是作为消极的责任阻却事由,是一个值得商榷的问题。基于思想上的经济性和诉讼上的便利性的考量,本文认为,将期待不可能作为罪责排除事由是合适的。     

论期待可能性之理论定位及其在我国的实现路径

在德日刑法中,期待可能性归属于有责性,但它与故意和过失在犯罪论体系中的法律地位不同,故意和过失是有责性的必备要素,期待可能性是作为有责性中的例外因素而存在的。如果我国将期待可能性置于"犯罪——刑事责任——刑罚"模式下的刑事责任中,即可在行为已经完全符合犯罪构成成立犯罪的情况下,适用期待可能性理论进行减轻刑事责任的考量,并且可进一步将期待可能性纳入到刑法中的概括情节和酌定情节,以使期待可能性理论充分发挥其减轻刑事责任的机能。     

期待可能性理论及其在我国的可能进路

本文通过比较研究分析了我国犯罪构成体系的缺陷,并结合大陆法系期待可能性理论与犯罪构成要件关系,分析了将期待可能性理论引入我国的必要性与可行性,进而提出借鉴英美法系犯罪构成的双层次模式,将我国的犯罪成立理论分化为犯罪的基本要件和责任阻却事由,并将无期待可能性与责任能力缺失或降低作为超法规的阻却责任事由,与以正当防卫、紧急避险为主要内容的排除违法性行为一起共同构成责任阻却事由.     

人性的泯灭,抑或正义的胜利——期待可能性的个案分析

期待可能性理论体现了"法不强人所难"的价值意蕴,表达了刑法对人性的尊重与关怀。本文指出由于我国犯罪构成理论不同于大陆法系的犯罪论体系,期待可能性理论在我国犯罪构成中无对应部分,但该理论所蕴含的价值却值得我国刑法理论借鉴。     

期待可能性理论的认识论反思

期待可能性的理论建构和规范选择 ,应在形式理性与实体理性的矛盾关系框架内进行。在这一认识论基础上 ,本文讨论了两个问题 :一是期待可能性在犯罪论体系中的地位 ;二是判定期待可能性的标准。作者认为 ,我国犯罪成立理论应分化为“犯罪构成要件”和“犯罪阻却事由”两个层次 ,期待可能性作为一个独立的规范评价指针 ,不能完全形式理性化 ,故属于犯罪阻却事由层次 ;判定期待可能性的标准是一个司法问题 ,故应采“行为者标准说     

期待可能性理论的法理学分析

在大陆法系的三阶段犯罪论体系中,期待可能性被认为属于责任论领域的问题,没有期待可能性就没有刑事责任。对期待可能性的法理学分析必须超越刑法学的问题域。期待可能性问题与各种责任本质理论并无直接的必然的联系,期待可能性是义务性规范的立法要求,在刑事司法的定罪过程中,不允许司法者直接考量期待可能性问题,坚持形式合理优先。     

期待可能性理论初探

期待可能性是指根据行为时的具体情况,能够期待行为人实施合法行为的可能性。期待可能性理论有其人性基础,体现了刑法的谦抑。期待可能性在犯罪论中的地位应置于责任论中,责任能力、违法性的意识的可能性和期待可能性都是责任要素。期待可能性理论的引进,可以使我国刑法理论中的许多问题得到合理的解释,对刑事司法的指导意义也是明显的。     

期待可能性的体系地位

对期待可能性理论加以系统研究乃至积极借鉴,首先需要解决的是在我国当下的犯罪论体系中期待可能性的地位问题。在详细介绍和评述了期待可能性理论在日本刑法学中的体系地位以及是否需要对期待可能性之适用加以限制的观点后,文章认为,我国四要件的犯罪论体系中没有期待可能性的恰当位置,而在犯罪论体系之外讨论期待可能性也不妥当。真正引入这一价值蕴含丰富的理论,有赖于对我国的犯罪论体系加以阶层式改造。     

期待可能性与犯罪构成

期待可能性在犯罪构成体系中的定位是我国目前刑法学界关于期待可能性理论争论的焦点问题.本文通过对我国司法实践中典型案例的分析,发现“村民上书求情”(民众之法感情)与犯罪动机承担着期待可能性相类似的功能.本文将期待可能性归于我国犯罪构成的主观方面中犯罪动机之下,发挥犯罪动机“特有要件”与量刑情节的功能,以达到符合民众之法感情,法之公平正义的目的.     

Bhartṛhari and Maṇḍana on Avidyā

The concept of avidyā is one of the central categories in the Advaita of Śaṇkara and Maṇḍana. Shifting the focus from māyā, interpreted either as illusion or as the divine power, this concept brings ignorance to the forefront in describing duality and bondage. Although all Advaitins accept avidyā as a category, its scope and nature is interpreted in multiple ways. Key elements in Maṇḍana’s philosophy include the plurality of avidyā, individual selves as its substrate and the Brahman as its field (viṣaya), and the distinction in avidyā between non-apprehension and misapprehension. A closer investigation shows that Maṇḍana is directly influenced by Bhartṛhari’s linguistic non-dualism in developing the concept of avidyā. This study also compares other key constituents such as vivartta and pariṇāma that are relevant to the analysis of avidyā. As the concept of counter-image (pratibimba) emerges as a distinct stream of Advaita subsequent to Maṇḍana, this study also compares the application of pratibimba in the writings of Bhartṛhari and Maṇḍana.     

Immigration,intermarriage and the changing face of Europe in the post war period

In this article we compare the propensity to intermarry of various migrant groups and their children who settled in Germany, France, England, Belgium and the Netherlands in the post-war period, using a wide range of available statistical data. We try to explain different intermarriage patterns within the framework of Alba and Nee's assimilation theory and pay special attention to the role of religion, colour and colonial background. We therefore compare colonial with non colonial migrants and within these categories between groups with ‘European’ (Christian) and non-European (Islam, Hinduism) religions. First of all, religion appears to be an important variable. Migrants whose faith has no tradition in Western Europe intermarry at a much lower rate than those whose religious backgrounds correspond with those that are common in the country of settlement. The rate of ethnic endogamous marriages in Western Europe are highest in Hindu and Muslim communities, often regardless if they came as guest workers or colonial migrants. Whereas differences in religion diminish the propensity to intermarry, colour or ‘racial’ differences on the other hand seem to be less important. This is largely explained by the pre-migration socialisation. Furthermore, the paper argues that the attention to institutions, as rightly advocated by Richard Alba and Victor Nee, needs a more refined and layered elaboration. Institutions, often as barriers to intermarriage, do not only emanate from the receiving society, but also—be it less formalized—within migrant communities. Especially religions and family systems, but also organized nationalist feelings, can have a profound influence on how migrants think about endogamy. Finally, strong pressures to assimilate, often through institutionalized forms of discrimination and stigmatization, not only produce isolation and frustrate assimilation (with resulting low intermarriage rates), but can also stimulate assimilation by 'passing' mechanisms. These factors, together with a more comparative perspective, are not completely ignored in the new assimilation theory, but—as this study of Western European intermarriage patterns stresses—deserve to be included more systematically in historical and social scientist analyses.     

Unraveling the <Emphasis Type="Italic">Kāvyaprakāśa</Emphasis>: Jayadeva Pīyūṣavarṣa’s idiosyncratic sequence of topics in the <Emphasis Type="Italic">Candrāloka</Emphasis>

In his twelfth century alaṃkāraśāstra, the Candrāloka, Jayadeva Pīyūṣavarṣa reverses the sequence of topics found in Mammaṭa’s Kāvyapr-akāśa, an earlier and immensely popular work. With such a structural revisionism, Jayadeva asserts the autonomy of his own work and puts forth an ambitious critique of earlier approaches to literary analysis. Jayadeva investigates the technical and aesthetic components of poetry in the first part of the Candrāloka, prior to his formal semantic investigations in the latter half of the text, thus suggesting that aesthetic evaluations of poetry beneficially inform scientific investigations of language. Jayadeva’s organization of his chapters on the semantic operations, moreover, intimates that the study of suggestive and metaphoric functions of language clarifies our understanding of denotation, which is conventionally understood to be the primary and direct path of verbal designation.     

Illumination,Imagination, Creativity: Rājaśekhara,Kuntaka, and Jagannātha on <Emphasis Type="Italic">Pratibhā</Emphasis>

Sanskrit poeticians make the visionary faculty of pratibhā a necessary part of the professional poet’s make-up. The term has a pre-history in Bhartṛhari’s linguistic metaphysics, where it is used to explain the unitary perception of meaning. This essay examines the relation between pratibhā and possible theories of the imagination, with a focus on three unusual theoreticians—Rājaśekhara, Kuntaka, and Jagannātha Paṇḍita. Rājaśekhara offers an analysis of pratibhā that is heavily interactive, requiring the discerning presence of the bhāvaka listener or critic; he also positions pratibhā in relation to Bildung (vyutpatti) and practice. For Kuntaka, pratibhā, never an ex nihilo creation by a poet, serves as the basis for the peculiar forms of intensified insight and experience that constitute poetry; these may also involve the creative scrambling and re-articulation of the object in terms of its systemic composition. At times, Kuntaka’s pratibhā comes close to a strong notion of imaginative process. But the full-fledged thematization of the imagination, and of pratibhā as its support and mechanism, is best seen in the seventeenth-century debates preserved for us by Jagannātha. A link is suggested between the discourse of poetic imagination in Jagannātha and similar themes that turn up in Indo-Persian poets such as Bedil.     

Preventing Homelessness for System‐Involved Youth

Too many youth and young adults find themselves on the streets, couch‐surfing with friends, in emergency shelters or worse, after exiting the child welfare and juvenile justice systems. In some circumstances, youth have had court hearings until their exit from the legal system, but those hearings have not focused on long‐range plans of youth and emergencies youth may encounter. In other circumstances, there has been little or no planning prior to discharge, especially for young people who leave the juvenile justice system. Courts can and should prevent, alleviate or end youth homelessness for youth who appear before them through strategies that are enumerated in the recently‐passed NCJFCJ resolution. This article expounds on three of these strategies – coordinating transition and re‐entry plans, insisting on effective legal representation of youth, and utilizing sound judicial leadership. It also describes the concurrent efforts of the Coalition for Juvenile Justice and the American Bar Association's Homeless Youth Legal Network to remove legal barriers and improve outcomes for youth and young adults experiencing homelessness.     

Best practices for structuring a family court parenting plan evaluation under the 2022 AFCC Guidelines

Evaluation appointment orders provide enforceable scaffolding for conduct of family court parenting plan evaluations, and use of the evaluator's reports, feedback, file, and testimony. Unlike a contract, a stipulated or adjudicated appointment order is directly enforceable by the family court. It unambiguously positions the evaluator as the family court's appointee – answerable directly to the court and, in some jurisdictions, protected by quasi-judicial immunity from damages claims. A well-crafted appointment order governs the roles and expectations of the court, the evaluator, the parties, the lawyers, and the collateral witnesses. An appointment order mandates the legal duties, rights, powers, and responsibilities of the professionals, the parties, and the collateral witnesses. At minimum, an appointment order articulates the legal basis for the appointment, the purpose and scope of the evaluation, compensation of evaluator, and the duty of the parties to participate in the process. A written evaluation protocol or procedures statement discloses in advance the methods of investigation and assessment that the evaluator intends to use. Together, the appointment order and written protocol help the evaluator, lawyers, parents, and judge manage the complexity of the evaluation process.     

The Supreme Array Scripture: A New Interpretation of the Title “Gaṇḍavyūha-sūtra”

This article argues for a new interpretation of the Sanskrit compound gaṇḍa-vyūha as it is used in the common title of the Mahāyāna text the Gaṇḍavyūha-Sūtra.The author begins by providing a brief history of the sūtra’s appellations in Chinese and Tibetan sources. Next, the meanings of gaṇḍa (the problematic member of the compound) are explored. The author proposes that contemporary scholars have overlooked a meaning of gaṇḍa occurring in some compounds, wherein gaṇḍa can mean simply “great,” “big” or “massive.” This general sense is particularly common in the compound gaṇda-śaila (a “massive rock” or “boulder”) and is found in such texts as the Bhāgavata Purāṇa, the Harivaṃśa and the Harṣacarita. Following the discussion of Gaṇḍa, the author examines the term vyūha (“array”) as it is used in the Gaṇḍavyūha-sūtra. The article concludes with the suggestion that a more appropriate translation of the Gaṇḍavyūha-sūtra would be “The Supreme array Scripture.”     

Evaluation of six presumptive tests for blood, their specificity, sensitivity, and effect on high molecular-weight DNA

Luminol, leuchomalachite green, phenolphthalein, Hemastix, Hemident, and Bluestar are all used as presumptive tests for blood. In this study, the tests were subjected to dilute blood (from 1:10,000 to 1:10,000,000), many common household substance, and chemicals. Samples were tested for DNA to determine whether the presumptive tests damaged or destroyed DNA. The DNA loci tested were D2S1338 and D19S433. Leuchomalachite green had a sensitivity of 1:10,000, while the remaining tests were able to detect blood to a dilution of 1:100,000. Substances tested include saliva, semen, potato, tomato, tomato sauce, tomato sauce with meat, red onion, red kidney bean, horseradish, 0.1 M ascorbic acid, 5% bleach, 10% cupric sulfate, 10% ferric sulfate, and 10% nickel chloride. Of all the substances tested, not one of the household items reacted with every test; however, the chemicals did. DNA was recovered and amplified from luminol, phenolphthalein, Hemastix, and Bluestar, but not from leuchomalachite green or Hemident.     

<Emphasis Type="Italic">Anyathākhyāti</Emphasis>: A Critique by Appaya Dīkṣita in the <Emphasis Type="Italic">Parimala</Emphasis>

In this paper, the problem of illusory perception, as approached by the Nyāya and Advaita Vedānta schools of philosophy, is discussed from the standpoint of the Parimala. This seminal work belonging to the Bhāmatī tradition of Advaita Vedānta was composed in the sixteenth century by the polymath Appaya Dīk?ita. In the context of discussing various theories of illusion, Dīk?ita dwells upon the Nyāya theory of anyathākhyāti, and its connection with jñānalak?a?apratyāsatti as a causal factor for perception, and closely examines if such an extraordinary (alaukika) perception is tenable to explain illusory perception. He then proceeds to point out the deficiencies of this model and thereby brings to the fore the anirvacanīyakhyāti of Advaitins as the only theory which stands scrutiny.     

Monks Who Have Sex: Pārājika Penance in Indian Buddhist Monasticisms

In the study of Buddhism it is commonly accepted that a monk or nun who commits a pārājika offence is permanently and irrevocably expelled from the Buddhist monastic order. This view is based primarily on readings of the Pāli Vinaya. With the exception of the Pāli Vinaya, however, all other extant Buddhist monastic law codes (Dharmaguptaka, Mahāsāṅghika, Mahīśāsaka, Sarvāstivāda and Mūlasarvāstivāda) contain detailed provisions for monks and nuns who commit pārājikas but nevertheless wish to remain within the saṅgha. These monastics are not expelled. Rather, they are granted a special status known as the śikṣādattaka. In this paper I explore the rules. concerning pārājika penance and the śikṣādattaka with specific regard to monastic celibacy. Given that five out of six extant law codes recognise this remarkable accommodation to the rule of celibacy, I argue that we must look to Vinayas other than the Pāli Vinaya if we are to arrive at a nuanced and representative view of Indian Buddhist monasticism.

Grant me chastity and continence, but not yet. Augustine of Hippo (354–430 C.E.)