After graduating from the University of Chicago Law School, Professor Kaye completed a judicial clerkship with Judge A. Wallace Tashima on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. He then served as an associate appellate counsel for the Criminal Appeals Bureau of The Legal Aid Society of New York, where he represented defendants convicted of crimes ranging from pick-pocketing to murder, and where he served as an alternate vice-president for the Association of Legal Aid Attorneys, a union affiliated with the UAW. He was also a consulting attorney for the Capital Defender’s Office of New York.
Professor Kaye’s current research explores how we come to see some people as “criminals” and how we justify our treatment of such people. He is especially interested in how we think about criminal responsibility, the features a person must have to be responsible for a crime and whether people actually have those features. He is also interested in the criminal excuses, our reasons for excusing and whether those reasons have threatening implications for our current punishment practices. More broadly, his research looks at the ethical significance of social, cultural and environmental causes of criminal behavior for responsibility, excuse and punishment, and at the political aspects of our answers to these questions.
Courses include:
Criminal Law, Evidence, Federal Criminal Law, Vice Crime, Criminal Procedure
Why Pornography is Not Prostitution: Folk Theories of Sexuality in the Law of Vice , St. Louis U. L.J. (forthcoming 2015)
Excuses in Exile, 48 U. Mich. J.L. Reform 437 (2014)
Objectifying and Identifying in the Theory of Excuse, 39 Am. J. Crim. L. 175 (2012)
Powerful Particulars: The Real Reason The Behavioral Sciences Threaten Criminal Responsibility, 37 Fla. St. L. Rev. 3 (2010)
Schematic Psychology and Criminal Responsibility, 83 St. John's Law Rev. 565 (2009)
Does Situationist Psychology Have Radical Implications For Criminal Responsibility?, 59 Ala. L. Rev. 611 (2008)
The Secret Politics of the Compatibilist Criminal Law, 55 Kan. L. Rev. (2007)
Resurrecting the Causal Theory of the Excuses, 83 Neb L. Rev. 1116 (2005)
Dangerous Places: The Right to Self-Defense in Prison and Prison Conditions Jurisprudence, 63 U. Chi. L. Rev. 693 (1996)
Corrupting Touch and Fallen Avatars: Unearthing Folk Theories of Sexuality Where the Laws of Prostitution and Pornographic Acting Intersect, CrimFest 2014, Rutgers School of Law - Newark, Newark, NJ (July 22, 2014)
Excuses in Exile, ABA Criminal Justice Section Annual Institute, Scholarship Roundtable, Washington, DC (October 31, 2013)
Mitigation as the Unconscious of the Criminal Law, AALS Midyear Conference, Criminal Justice Section, Works-In-Progress Panel, San Diego, CA (June 12, 2013)
Zimmerman / Martin, Stand Your Ground Panel, Thomas Jefferson School of Law, San Diego, CA (April 4, 2012)
Does Situationist Psychology Have Radical Implications For Criminal Responsibility? Texas Junior Scholarship Workshop, Texas Wesleyan School of Law, August 2007
The Secret Politics of the Compatibilist Criminal Law, University of Chicago Scholarship Workshop Class, Nov. 2006
