George P. Fletcher

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George P. Fletcher is the Cardozo Professor of Jurisprudence, Columbia University School of Law. [1]

Cornell University, 1956-59 (mathematics, Russian); B.A. 1960, University of California, Berkeley; J.D. 1964, University of Chicago; University of Freiburg, West Germany 1964- 65; Masters in Comparative Law, 1965, University of Chicago.

Fletcher is a noted expert on criminal law. His widely-taught book "Rethinking Criminal Law" is a "well known time-honored classic of criminal law jurisprudence and the most cited scholarly book on criminal law." Fletcher was honored on the twenty-fifth anniversary of its publication with a "Symposium: Twenty-Five Years of George Fletcher's Rethinking Criminal Law." [2]


[edit] Books

  • Defending Humanity: When Force is Justified and Why , co-authored with Jens Ohlin Oxford University Press 2008
  • Our Secret Constitution: How Lincoln Redefined American Democracy (Oxford 2001) was honored as the best book on law published in 2001.
  • With Justice for Some: Victims’ Rights in Criminal Trials (Addison Wesley 1995), quoted by Marsha Clark in the O.J. Simpson trial.
  • Loyalty: An Essay on the Morality of Relationships (Oxford 1993), praised by William Safire twice in his column in the New York Times, translated in French, German, and Spanish.
  • A Crime of Self-Defense: Bernhard Goetz and the Law on Trial (Free Press 1988) received the Silver Gavel Award from the American Bar Association, translated into German, Spanish, Italian, and Japanese.
  • Rethinking Criminal Law (Little Brown 1978) received the Order-of-Coif award as one of the best books published on law in the late 1970s
  • Romantics at War: Glory and Guilt in the Age of Terrorism (Princeton University Press, 2002)
  • Basic Concepts of Criminal Law (Oxford University Press, 1998) (Spanish edition, 1997; Russian edition, 1998; Italian edition forthcoming)
  • Basic Concepts of Legal Thought (Oxford University Press, 1996)
  • With Justice for Some: Victims' Rights in Criminal Trials (Addison-Wesley,1995) (paperback, 1996; Spanish edition, 1996)
  • Introduzione Elementare alla Scienza Giuridica (II. Cardozo Lectures in Law)


  • Justification and Excuse: Comparative Perspectives, Volumes I and II (ed. with A. Eser 1987)
  • Courts of Terror (Fletcher, Dershowitz et al. eds., Knopf 1976)

[edit] Honors

  • Winner of the German Wissenschaftspreis 1995.
  • Delivered Storrs Lectures at Yale, 2001.
  • Elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2004).



[edit] References

  1. ^ Fletcher Curriculum Vitae
  2. ^ Symposium: Twenty-Five Years of George Fletcher's Rethinking Criminal Law, RUSSELL CHRISTOPHER, University of Tulsa College of Law, Tulsa Law Review, Vol. 39, pp. 737-994, Summer 2004