Academic Legal Writing - Eugene Volokh [185]
Second, I hope to start a broader discussion about what I identify as the potential “anticooperative effect” of criminal law and tort law generally: The tendency of some kinds of government coercion, even when they are in the abstract morally proper, to deter citizens from cooperating with the authorities. Sometimes, I suggest, even a morally justifiable urge to legally compel correct behavior can seriously backfire in this way. I hope the example of duty-to-rescue/report laws can stimulate attention to this practical effect of coercive rules.†
Please let me know if you have any questions about the piece.
Sincerely Yours,
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Dear [salutation]:
In the attached short article, I aim to make two contributions, which I hope will be of some use to criminal law teachers.‡
First, I argue that laws requiring bystanders to help crime victims may be practically counterproductive.* The laws' likely practical effects have been largely ignored by the literature, which has focused almost exclusively on whether the laws are morally justifiable. As too often happens, discussion about a law's morality has tended to drive out discussion about its wisdom. I hope my analysis will help broaden both the public, scholarly, and legislative debate about these proposals and class discussions about them.†[Personalize to the extent possible, e.g., with a sentence such as this:] Given your work on [subject or article title], which I found to be quite helpful when writing my article and which I cite on p. ___, I thought you might find this topic particularly interesting.
Second, I briefly point to what I call the potential “anticooperative effect” of criminal law and tort law generally: the tendency of some kinds of government coercion, even when they are in the abstract morally proper, to deter citizens from cooperating with the authorities. I freely admit that the precise magnitude of this effect is hard to gauge, but I argue that the effect must be considered, both as to duty-to-rescue/report laws and as to other laws, such as prostitution laws, illegal immigration laws, and bans on carrying concealed weapons (see pp. ___–___).‡
And I hope this discussion may be pedagogically helpful. Students often miss these sorts of indirect practical effects, and discussing the anticooperative effect in this context might help train students to analyze criminal law policy questions more comprehensively.§
I would love to hear any reactions you might have to this piece.
Sincerely Yours,
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Dear [salutation]:
I much enjoyed reading your [article name], and found it very helpful in writing my own article, which I enclose; your article is of course cited heavily on pp. ___-___ [or “cited heavily throughout,” if it is indeed cited throughout the piece]. [If you disagree with the recipient's article, write:] As you may notice, my analysis diverges in some measure from yours, but I nonetheless found your work to be very thought-provoking, and useful in helping me sharpen my own viewpoint.
In my article, I argue that laws requiring bystanders to help crime