Digital Commons @ Touro Law Center Scholarly Works Faculty Scholarship 1992 Fragments on the Deathwatch Louise Harmon Touro Law Center,
[email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.tourolaw.edu/scholarlyworks Part of the Law Commons Recommended Citation 77 Minn. L. Rev. 1 (1992-1993) This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Faculty Scholarship at Digital Commons @ Touro Law Center. It has been accepted for inclusion in Scholarly Works by an authorized administrator of Digital Commons @ Touro Law Center. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. Fragments on the Deathwatch Louise Harmon* TABLE OF CONTENTS Section I: Deathwatches ................................... 1 Section II: Paintiffs, Procedure, and the Limits of Law W ishes .............................................. 35 Left Hemisphere Interlude ............................ 84 Section III: Moving up the Brainstem ..................... 86 Section IV: Death Thought, Death Talk, and the Eviden- tiary Implications of Taboo .............................. 91 Section V: Law and the Architecture of Ritual Space .... 129 Right Hemisphere Coda ............................... 160 I. DEATHWATCHES The other night I saw a documentary on television about some elephants in Botswana.1 The herd was in trouble. Water was scarce, and the elephants were on the move. They trav- elled north to the Linyanti River, following the ancient paths of their ancestors. An elderly cow staggered behind the others, weakened from starvation, dehydration, and advanced age. Suddenly she slipped in the sand. The wind blew so fiercely across the hot, dry land that when she fell only a muffled cry could be heard over the white howl of air in motion. It was like * Associate Professor of Law, Jacob D.