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41 Emory L. J. 1059 (1992)
The Upper Limit of Just Punishment

handle is hein.journals/emlj41 and id is 1069 raw text is: THE UPPER LIMIT OF JUST PUNISHMENT Lawrence Crocker* Table of Contents I. INTRODUCTION ...................................... 1060 A. A Moral Theory of Maximum Criminal Penalties . 1060 B. The Theory as a Justification for Punishment .... 1063 C. The Relevance of the Theory to Practice ......... 1066 II. RECIPROCITY ....................................... 1067 A. The Reciprocity Principle R ................... 1067 B. A Brief History of Reciprocity .................. 1068 C. The Moral Status of Reciprocity Principles in General ................................... 1072 D. The Moral Status of Reciprocity Within Criminal Justice ..................................... 1076 E. Determining the Reciprocal Upper Limit ......... 1079 1. Equating Impositions ..................... 1079 2. Imposition upon the Offender .............. 1080 3. Imposition upon the Victim and Society ...... 1081 a. Intentional Crimes ................... 1081 b. Crimes of Risk Creation .............. 1084 c. Malum Prohibitum Crimes ............ 1086 d. Crimes of Lesser Culpability ........... 1088 F. Reciprocity and Sentencing .................... 1092 1. The Most Serious Offenses ................. 1092 2. Offenses of Lesser Seriousness-The Underpunishment Problem ................ 1093 3. Recidivist Statutes ....................... 1097 4. Categories of Crime ...................... 1098 * Associate Professor of Law, New York University School of Law, New York, New York. I am grateful to Lea Brilmayer, David Crocker, Ronald Dworkin, James Jacobs, Christopher Eisgruber, Thomas Nagel, Lawrence Sager, Andrew von Hirsch, and attendees of the New York University Colloquium in Law, Philosophy, and Political Theory; to the New York University School of Law Faculty Workshop for their comments on an earlier draft of this Article; and to Eric Iversen, Jeffrey Nagel, Steven Ross, and Rifka Wein for their research assistance. I acknowledge the generous finan- cial support of the Filomen D'Agostino and Max E. Greenberg Research Fund at the New York University School of Law.