The Justice of Mercy

Acknowledgments

Acknowledgments This book is the work of an embarrassing number of years. The problem of ‹nding a place for mercy within law is the question for me, and I suspect it always will be. But, being ‹nite, I doubt that I will ever answer all the questions I have, so I can only proffer this effort as “what I have learned so far.” As with any deeply personal work that stretches over decades, I could never begin to acknowledge all the colleagues, teachers, students, research assistants, friends, and family members who have given me ideas and references, challenged and changed my thinking, patiently read and clari‹ed my prose, and supported, encouraged, nagged, and, most important, shown me grace and mercy in so many ways. I thank my family, Jeff, Cara, and Zane; the extended Meyer/Olson/Wachholz/Pearson/Helyar/Knappenberger clan; and my close friends and colleagues, especially Ian Ayres, Roger Berkowitz, Jennifer Brown, Marianne Constable, Jennifer Culbert, Jeremy Elkins, Neal Feigenson, Ann Hopkins, Steve Latham, Shai Lavi, Doug and Melissa Logan, Greg Loken, Bill Odle, Trisha Olson, Austin Sarat, Sylvia Schafer, Marty Slaughter, Max Simmons , and Martha Umphrey. All read and/or discussed this project with me, whether they liked to or not, enriching and re‹ning it. In a very important sense, this book is not really mine, but I will claim it anyway, if only to take responsibility for its ›aws. A special thanks goes to Marianne Constable, Mark Antaki, Roger Berkowitz, Neal Feigenson, Jeff Meyer, Marty Slaughter, and Jill Stauffer, who sel›essly gave extensive time and made superb comments on early drafts of this book. I also wish to thank Dean Brad Saxton and my students and colleagues at Quinnipiac University, who supported this project ‹nancially, patiently listened to years of presentations about mercy, and gave me insightful, generous, and constructive comments on earlier pieces of this project, especially Brian Bix, Jennifer Brown, Neal Feigenson, Steve Gilles, Carrie Kaas, Stan Krauss, Leslie Lax, Leonard Long, Andrew Lolli, Heather McKay, Jeff Meyer, Sandy Meiklejohn, David Rosettenstein, Emily Graner Sexton, Amy Solomito, and Gail Stern. This project also bene‹ted greatly from invitations to present portions of it at Amherst College, Suffolk University, and at the University of Tel Aviv, for which I am indebted to Austin Sarat, Nasser Hussain, Nir Eisikovits, Shai Lavi, and the participants in the workshops they organized, who were all so generous with their reading, their comments, and their time. I thank Austin Sarat, Melody Herr, Martha Minow, Jim Reische, Kevin Rennells, and the editorial board and reviewers at Michigan, who thought this project worthwhile and allowed it to be a book. Finally, I would like to thank my teachers who inspired this quest and to whom this book is dedicated, especially Llona Steele, Carol Brandert, J. Michael Young, Warner Morse, Beth Schultz, David Lieberman , Robert Post, Philippe Nonet, John Wachholz, and Ron and Nancy Olson. Portions of this book have been adapted from the following essays: “The Merciful State,” in Forgiveness, Mercy, and Clemency, ed. Austin Sarat and Nasser Hussain (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2007). Copyright 2007 by the Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Jr. University, all rights reserved. By permission of the publisher, www.sup.org. “Between Reason and Power: Experiencing Legal Truth,” University of Cincinnati Law Review 67 (1999): 727. Copyright University of Cincinnati Law Review. Used with permission. “Herbert Morris and Punishment,”Quinnipiac Law Review 22 (2003): 109. Used with permission. “Miscarriages of Mercy?” in When Law Fails: Making Sense of Miscarriages of Justice, ed. Charles Ogletree Jr. and Austin Sarat, Charles Hamilton Houston Series on Race and Justice (New York: New York University Press, 2009). Used with permission. “The New Revenge and the Old Retribution: Insights from Monte Cristo,” in Studies in Law, Politics, and Society, vol. 31, ed. Austin Sarat and Patricia Ewick (Oxford: Elsevier, 2003). Used with permission of Emerald Group Publishing Limited. “Eternal Remorse,” in Studies in Law, Politics, and Society, vol. 36, ed. Austin Sarat, special vol., Toward a Critique of Guilt: Perspectives from Law and the Humanities , ed. Matthew Anderson (Oxford: Elsevier, 2005). Used with permission of Emerald Group Publishing Limited. x /  ...