Plausible Crime Stories is not only the first in-depth study of the history of sex offences in Mandate Palestine but it also pioneers an approach to the historical study of criminal law and proof that focuses on plausibility. Doctrinal rules of evidence only partially explain which crime stories make sense while others fail to convince. Since plausibility is predicated on commonly held systems of belief, it not only provides a key to the meanings individual social players ascribe to the law but also yields insight into communal perceptions of the legal system, self-identity, the essence of normality and deviance and notions of gender, morality, nationality, ethnicity, age, religion and other cultural institutions. Using archival materials, including documents relating to 147 criminal court cases, this socio-legal study of plausibility opens a window onto a broad societal view of past beliefs, dispositions, mentalities, tensions, emotions, boundaries and hierarchies.
In this book a theory of reasoning with evidence in the context of criminal cases is developed. The main subject of this study is not the law of evidence but rather the rational process of proof, which involves constructing, testing and justifying scenarios about what happened using evidence and commonsense knowledge. A central theme in the book is the analysis of ones reasoning, so that complex patterns are made more explicit and clear. This analysis uses stories about what happened and arguments to anchor these stories in evidence. Thus the argumentative and the narrative approaches from the research in legal philosophy and legal psychology are combined. Because the book describes its subjects in both an informal and a formal style, it is relevant for scholars in legal philosophy, AI, logic and argumentation theory. The book can also appeal to practitioners in the investigative and legal professions, who are interested in the ways in which they can and should reason with evidence.
Edgar Award Finalist: The true story of a serial killer who terrorized a midwestern town in the era of free love—by the coauthor of The French Connection. In 1967, during the time of peace, free love, and hitchhiking, nineteen-year-old Mary Terese Fleszar was last seen alive walking home to her apartment in Ypsilanti, Michigan. One month later, her naked body—stabbed over thirty times and missing both feet and a forearm—was discovered, partially buried, on an abandoned farm. A year later, the body of twenty-year-old Joan Schell was found, similarly violated. Southeastern Michigan was terrorized by something it had never experienced before: a serial killer. Over the next two years, five more bodies were uncovered around Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti, Michigan. All the victims were tortured and mutilated. All were female students. After multiple failed investigations, a chance sighting finally led to a suspect. On the surface, John Norman Collins was an all-American boy—a fraternity member studying elementary education at Eastern Michigan University. But Collins wasn’t all that he seemed. His female friends described him as aggressive and short tempered. And in August 1970, Collins, the “Ypsilanti Ripper,” was arrested, found guilty, and sentenced to life in prison without chance of parole. Written by the coauthor of The French Connection, The Michigan Murders delivers a harrowing depiction of the savage murders that tormented a small midwestern town.
One of America’s most acclaimed investigative journalists re-investigates some of the most notorious and mysterious crimes of the last 200 years The beloved head of the UN dies in a tragic plane crash . . . witnesses unearthed years later suggest it wasn’t an accident. Theories behind the mysterious death of Marilyn Monroe change yearly, and some believe Jack the Ripper was a member of the royal family. History books say Hitler burned down the Reichstag—but did he? And who really organized the conspiracy to kill Abraham Lincoln? Acclaimed investigative journalist Edward Jay Epstein cut his teeth on one of the most notorious murder mysteries of the 20th century in his first book, Inquest: The Warren Commission and the Establishment of Truth, one of the first books on the assassination and an instant bestseller. His conclusion? The Commission left open too many questions. He examines those questions here, as well as some of the most famous “unsolved” or mysterious crimes of all time, coming to some startling conclusions. His method in each investigation is simple: outline what is known and unknown, and show the plausible theories of a case. Where more than one theory exists, he shows the evidence for and against each. And when something remains to be proved, he says as much. In The Annals of Unsolved Crime, Epstein re-visits his most famous investigations and adds dozens of new cases. From the Lindbergh kidnapping to the JonBenet Ramsey murder case, from the Black Dahlia murder to anthrax attacks on America, from the vanishing of Jimmy Hoffa to the case of Amanda Knox—Epstein considers three dozen high-profile crimes and their tangled histories and again proves himself one of our most penetrating journalists.
Love to read but only have five minutes? There are sixty short stories packed into this volume. Travel from gangster lands to alien planets, from a child's innocence to the jaded voice of the aged, from tasty food to technological glitches. Beware - each tightly written tale comes with a twist, and sometimes a dragon "Jenni Clarke's five-minute stories didn't feel short while I was reading them. I was completely immersed in fascinating lives, heartbreaking events, and belly-laugh moments. Every skillfully-written tale in this collection is five-star worthy. I'm hoping for a second volume." DebbAnn
This book is about relating the concepts of rape and murder in both senses of the term; that is the way rape and murder are linked and related and also how stories of rape and murder are related or told.
This monograph poses a series of key problems of evidential reasoning and argumentation. It then offers solutions achieved by applying recently developed computational models of argumentation made available in artificial intelligence. Each problem is posed in such a way that the solution is easily understood. The book progresses from confronting these problems and offering solutions to them, building a useful general method for evaluating arguments along the way. It provides a hands-on survey explaining to the reader how to use current argumentation methods and concepts that are increasingly being implemented in more precise ways for the application of software tools in computational argumentation systems. It shows how the use of these tools and methods requires a new approach to the concepts of knowledge and explanation suitable for diverse settings, such as issues of public safety and health, debate, legal argumentation, forensic evidence, science education, and the use of expert opinion evidence in personal and public deliberations.
Unwilling Executioner is the first book to examine the deep-rooted relationship between the development of crime fiction as a genre and the consolidation of the modern state. It offers a far-reaching and wide-ranging perspective on this unfolding relationship over a three hundred year period but is not a straightforward and conventional narrative history of the genre. It is part of a new and exciting critical move to read crime fiction as a transnationalphenomenon and to examine crime novelists in an innovative comparative context, taking them out of their discreet national traditions. Considers Anglo-American crime-writing, as well as works published inFrance, Italy, Germany, Ireland, Japan, South Africa and elsewhere, it addresses the related questions of why crime fiction is political and how particular examples of the genre engage with the complicated issue of political commitment.
Students naturally love the thrill of solving crimes and cracking mysteries. Why not allow them to learn to write their own suspenseful stories? Writing Mysteries in the Classroom takes students step-by-step through the process of creating a good mystery story. Lessons include creating believable settings, writing suspenseful plots, detailing a crime scene, implementing mysterious tones and moods, describing suspicious characters, and writing realistic dialogue. Each lesson includes examples for students to follow and contains exercises that allow students to progressively complete their own detective stories. Grades 5-8