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Negotiating the Boundaries of Crime and Culture: A Sociolegal Perspective on Cultural Defense Strategies

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 December 2018

Kay L. Levine
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Abstract

In this article I offer a principled strategy for the courts to identify and to handle the uses of culture as a defense in a criminal proceeding. I begin by discussing the relationship between culture and behavior illuminated by sociologists of culture. I then explain the three categories into which cultural defenses fall–cultural reason, cultural requirement, and cultural tolerance–and the response of criminal courts in the United States to each. I argue that where culture offers an alternative explanation of the defendant's intent, it is highly relevant to determinations of criminal liability. However, where a defendant uses culture only to explain why he wanted to harm the victim and asks that the court be tolerant of such behavior, considerations of culture should not be allowed. In reaching this conclusion, I draw on theories of multiculturalism to consider the benefits and burdens of maintaining the facade of a “cultureless” criminal law in an increasingly heterogeneous society.

Type
Articles
Information
Law & Social Inquiry , Volume 28 , Issue 1 , Winter 2003 , pp. 39 - 86
Copyright
Copyright © American Bar Foundation, 2003 

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