Humpty Dumpty on Mens Rea Standards: A Proposed Methodology for Interpretation

When I use a word.., it means just what I choose it to mean-neither more nor less. , This statement by Humpty Dumpty sets forth the argument of this Note: words used to describe mens rea in federal criminal statutes have plain, ordinary meanings. When the United States Supreme Court interprets these statutes, it should do so according to the words\u27 plain meanings. Because the Court has not used this approach in past cases, the law of mens rea on the federal level is confusing and inconsistent. The Court has tried to repair poorly drafted statutes by interpreting them in various ways to achieve what it thought was the correct result. By applying different interpretation techniques, however, the Court has developed an ad hoc mens rea jurisprudence that confuses people about what mental state is necessary for conviction under federal criminal laws. People thus cannot order their affairs to avoid violating the law. To clarify the law, the United States Congress and the Supreme Court should engage in a law-making dialogue that results in Congress drafting clearer statutes and the Court interpreting those statutes according to the words\u27 plain meanings. The Supreme Court\u27s mens rea analysis in federal criminal cases is least settled in cases involving the knowingly standard. The Court apparently interprets other mens rea standards, such as willfully, purposely, and recklessly, consistently. The Court has more difficulty interpreting knowingly, because it falls in the middle of the mens rea standard hierarchy. Willfully, the most stringent standard, implies either a full understanding of both the law and the facts or an understanding of egregious facts that indicate the defendant knew she was doing something wrong. Recklessly, one of the lowest standards, implies very little thought. Knowingly, however, indicates a standard somewhere above recklessness and below fully-informed thwarting of the law. Determining exactly what it means to act knowingly appears to be difficult for the Court. Although the Court has consistently defined knowingly to require that the defendant actually knew he committed. the acts that made his conduct criminal, the Court applies this definition only if doing so will allow the Court to reach its desired result .For instance, when the Court hears a case involving a statute that criminalizes morally suspect behavior, it defines knowingly to require only that the defendant knew he acted, regardless of whether the defendant knew those actions were illegal. In cases that involve statutes that may be read as criminalizing otherwise innocent conduct, the Court defines knowingly to mean that the defendant knew the facts about his or her actions and that those actions were illegal

Witness: Reflections on Detention in Joyce Carol Oates\u27s Work

Throughout her career, Joyce Carol Oates has resisted the urge of others to label her a feminist writer, insisting that she be considered a writer, independent of biological gender. As America’s “chronicler of the middle class,” she has given voice to countless invisible female character types, but this is only one concern among many. Oates is incredibly active, but rather than to actively incite, she uses her prolific pen to create testimonies to contemporary American life, seeking particularly to give voice to the voiceless among us. In spite of the notions of crime and justice being central to her fiction since her first published story in the late 60s, “In The Old World,” any incarceration alluded to in her writing has tended towards the metaphorical as Oates has often chosen to focus on the detrimental effects of crime on victims. However, two works published in 2014 – a novel, Carthage; and an edited story collection, Prison Noir – combine to create testimonies to prison life in the United States and raise questions about the nature of the system that puts people there. In her introduction to the collection, Oates writes: “hardly to our credit, the United States locks up nearly 25 percent of the world’s prison population, while having only 5 percent of the world’s overall population. Or, in other terms, the United States incarcerates more than 2.2 million individuals, a far higher rate per capita than any other nation.” This is at once a statement of fact and a critique seeking to combat feelings of indifference on the part of the general public from a writer who has engaged with prison populations throughout her life by exchanging correspondance with inmates and even teaching a prison writing workshop in 2011. This paper will discuss the depiction of incarceration experiences and prison visits by outsiders in several Oates stories – “How I Contemplated the World,” “San Quentin,” “High,” “Dear Joyce Carol” – to shed light on the way in which her consistent engagement with America’s imperfect prison system has culminated in her work editing a volume of inmates’ fiction

Fiction in Fact and Fact in Fiction in the Writing of Joyce Carol Oates

Joyce Carol Oates draws extensively on news stories, as well as on elements of her own family’s past, to find inspiration for her works of fiction. She has written about the Chappaquiddick incident involving Ted Kennedy and the JonBenet Ramsay murder case. She has worked the Niagara Falls Love Canal environmental scandal into the framework of The Falls and taken inspiration from sordid events from her own family’s past in the beginning of The Gravedigger’s Daughter. However, in none of these examples does Oates purport to relate the precise real-life “facts” of the historical events. Indeed, for an author who believes in the multiplicity of truths such a task would be superfluous, if it was in fact possible, given what she perceives as the inherently “error-prone” nature of our species. “Language,” she writes in her essay “On Fiction in Fact,” “by its very nature tends to distort experience. With the best of intentions, in recalling the past, if even a dream of the previous night, we are already altering – one might say violating – the original experience, which may have been wordless and was certainly improvised.” In response to what she sees as the problematic nature of language, memory and the artificial nature of writing, Oates has cultivated a self-described “psychological realism” that seeks to depict a greater realm of truth beyond the world of facts, that is to say the truth of emotion and felt experience, “states of mind [which are] real enough – emotions, moods, shifting obsessions, beliefs – though immeasurable.” This article compares both fiction and non-fiction works by Oates – notably, A Widow’s Story, Sourland, The Falls – in a discussion of the fluctuating frontier between the two genres and the notion of psychological Truth that this tenuous relationship reveals

Joyce Carol Oates: Fantastic, New Gothic and Inner Realities

Joyce Carol Oates fait appel, de manière récurrente dans ses nouvelles, à des événements d’ordre surnaturel : des bruits émanant d’un autre monde peuvent déboucher sur des découvertes macabres ; des créatures fantastiques peuvent cohabiter avec les personnages ; des expériences peuvent se dérouler dans la zone liminale entre rêve et réalité. Pour leur part, les personnages ne se posent pas de questions sur la réalité des différents événements surnaturels survenant dans le récit. De ce fait, les nouvelles s’intéressent non pas à ces événements, mais plutôt à la façon dont ils peuvent être employés comme outils d’exploration de la psychologie des personnages. Cet article examine les apparitions fantastiques dans quatre nouvelles de Oates — « Fossil-Figures », « The Temple », « Secret Reflections on the Goat-Girl » et « Why Don’t You Come Live With Me It’s Time » — afin de voir comment Oates utilise le « réalisme psychologique » dans ses nouvelles gothiques pour représenter l’état d’esprit des différents personnages

Elizabeth Spencer’s “Owl”: Building Psychological Tension through Ominous Portents Tanya Tromble

La nouvelle “Owl” d’Elizabeth Spencer prend comme point de départ le mythe largement accepté de la nature inquiétante de l’appel du hibou puis construit habilement la tension, non pas par le biais de l’action, mais par le recours à l’allusion, à la juxtaposition et à des références au domaine émotionnel du personnage. Pour comparer ce qui est culturel à ce qui est original dans l’œuvre de Spencer, cet article lit la nouvelle en la comparant à trois autres œuvres : I Heard the Owl Call My Name de Margaret Craven, “The Corpse Bird” de Ron Rash et “Owl Eyes” de Joyce Carol Oates. Chacun de ces textes associe la notion de mort au cri du hibou qui se produit par séquences de trois. Parmi les quatre œuvres en question, Spencer réalise le plus grand effet gothique de la manière la plus économique, en appliquant apparemment à la lettre les conseils énoncés par Oates dans son essai “Building Tension in the Short Story”. Spencer utilise divers artifices pour évoquer la présence obsédante du rapace. Le chiffre trois régit la structure de l’œuvre de plusieurs manières, intégrant ainsi la fréquence du cri du hibou dans la structure même de l’histoire. Le personnage principal, Ginia, s’efforce de séparer les vérités rationnelles des superstitions, en interprétant les événements de sa vie quotidienne à travers le prisme de la légende du chant du hibou qu’elle a apprise étant enfant. L’idée de perte est continuellement évoquée jusqu’à ce que la répétition de cette notion lui donne un effet de permanence. Ces caractéristiques et d’autres encore contribuent à faire de “Owl” un bel exemple de l’effet gothique

Hurricane Storm Surge Modeling for Southern Louisiana

Coastal Louisiana is characterized by low-lying topography and an intricate network of sounds, estuaries, bays, marshes, lakes, rivers and inlets that permit widespread inundation during hurricanes, such as that witnessed during the 2005 hurricane season with Katrina and Rita. A basin to channel scale implementation of the ADCIRC hydrodynamic model has been developed that simulates hurricane storm surge, tides and river flow in this complex region

Loss and Haunting in Joyce Carol Oates’s “Anniversary” and “The Haunting”

Au début de sa carrière, Joyce Carol Oates a élaboré une théorie de la nouvelle qu’elle a largement suivie par la suite. Pour elle, le genre de la nouvelle reproduit un univers psychologique et parle à l’inconscient comme l’illustre nombre de ses textes où se développent, dans des espaces liminaux fluctuants, des expériences relatives à la conscience ou à l’inconscient. Cet article montre comment certaines théories psychanalytiques ou psychologiques autour de la spectralité ou des désordres affectifs limites peuvent expliquer l’utilisation que propose Oates de la hantise. Dans « The Haunting », les cris inquiétants émanant de cages à lapins dans un sous-sol représentent le traumatisme lié à la perte d’un père. Dans « Anniversary », une femme qui a récemment perdu son mari attend avec impatience l’apparition de son époux défunt et découvre à sa grande surprise que ses étudiants croient aux fantômes

Advances using the ADCIRC hydrodynamic model: Parameter estimation and aspects of coupled hydrologic-hydrodynamic flood inundation modeling

The ADCIRC hydrodynamic model has been used extensively for coastal modeling applications over the last twenty years. Within the last decade, modeling of hurricane storm surge has become one of its principal applications. Utilization of ADCIRC for these problems has required additional model development. Two areas for model development are focused on in this dissertation. First, the numerical parameter, G, is analyzed in ADCIRC. Then, aspects of coupled hydrologic-hydrodynamic modeling for coastal flood inundation are explored using ADCIRC.The numerical parameter, G, in the generalized wave continuity equation, which is one of the governing equations in ADCIRC, is analyzed using dispersion analysis results as a guide for parameter selection. Results show traditional analysis techniques, which are limited to linear systems, do not produce optimal results for non-linear problems. Therefore, application of the Forward Sensitivity Method (FSM) to ADCIRC, in 1-D, is explored. Results show model sensitivity to G computed using the FSM is equivalent to numerical analog values using model results. Additionally, the data assimilation step in the FSM can be used to successfully recover target values using the model errors and sensitivity values. However, due to the variability of the sensitivities, recovery of target G values depends on the initial coefficient set specification. Furthermore, sensitivity results show generation of spurious oscillations in the elevation and velocity results when G is set too high.The preliminary model coupling is completed using 1-D channel routing and ADCIRC models to analyze the impact of the location of the coupling, the types of boundary conditions used for the models, and the complexity of the momentum equation approximation in the channel routing model. Results show one-way coupling of a model with kinematic wave channel routing to ADCIRC is acceptable if the hand-off point is placed upstream of major backwater effects. Additionally, ADCIRC results are best when flux values are used at the upstream boundary.Finally, a one-way coupled model system using output from a hydrologic model as the upstream boundary condition in ADCIRC is implemented. The target area for this 2-D application is coastal North Carolina, specifically the Tar-Pamlico and Neuse River basins and Pamlico Sound. The hand-off points on the rivers are placed tens of km inland from the Pamlico Sound to ensure ADCIRC handles areas impacted by tides and storm surge. Results show ADCIRC accurately represents specified boundary discharges at the upstream extents of the rivers and can model inundation of the coastal plain due to the combined effects of rainfall-runoff and hurricane storm surge. A hindcast of Hurricane Isabel shows the coupled system accurately models total water level at the USGS location at Washington where the Tar-Pamlico River discharges into the Pamlico Sound. However, inadequate resolution and issues with the wet/dry algorithm in ADCIRC give rise to some mass balance problems in the river reaches that limit the accuracy of results in the downstream portions of the rivers