February 18, 2000

'The Passions of Law'

By NINA C. AYOUB

Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord, and that's just fine with the American legal system. Even in the extreme of capital punishment, the law officially claims dispassion.

Writes Susan A. Bandes: "In the conventional story, emotion has a certain, narrowly defined place in law." It is accepted that those without legal training -- jurors, witnesses, defendants -- will have emotions. But before judgment, those feelings will be "categorized as admissible or inadmissible, and disregarded when

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