The Criminal Codes


Book Description

This sixth edition of The Criminal Codes: Commentary and Materials has been substantially revised to increase overall clarity and to ensure a balanced examination of the criminal law in the "Code" States, Queensland and Western Australia. The work has been brought up-to-date in all areas and provides valuable comment on the recent wide-reaching reforms to the law of homicide in Western Australia. Significant developments in both States discussed in this edition include: the abolition of wilful murder and infanticide, and the new definition of murder (WA); the introduction of the new offence of unlawful assault causing death (WA); the abolition of provocation to murder (WA), and whether this excuse still has a part to play (Qld); the reformulation of the excuse of self defence, and the introduction of excessive self defence (WA); the creation of offences for drink spiking (Qld and WA); and current and proposed sentencing considerations (Qld and WA). Fundamental principles of the criminal law are illustrated throughout the book by selected extracts from the Codes and case law, while additional materials foster critical reflection on the law and the need for reform. The Criminal Codes: Commentary and Materials, 6th Edition is essential reading for students studying criminal law in Western Australia and Queensland.




Model Codes for Post-conflict Criminal Justice


Book Description

Accompanying CD-ROMs contains the text of vol. 1. and vol. 2.







United States Code


Book Description




Criminal Law, Procedure, and Evidence


Book Description

Providing a complete view of U.S. legal principles, this book addresses distinct issues as well as the overlays and connections between them. It presents as a cohesive whole the interrelationships between constitutional principles, statutory criminal laws, procedural law, and common-law evidentiary doctrines. This fully revised and updated new edition also includes discussion questions and hypothetical scenarios to check learning. Constitutional principles are the foundation upon which substantive criminal law, criminal procedure law, and evidence laws rely. The concepts of due process, legality, specificity, notice, equality, and fairness are intrinsic to these three disciplines, and a firm understanding of their implications is necessary for a thorough comprehension of the topic. This book examines the tensions produced by balancing the ideals of individual liberty embodied in the Constitution against society’s need to enforce criminal laws as a means of achieving social control, order, and safety. Relying on his first-hand experience as a law enforcement official and criminal defense attorney, the author presents issues that highlight the difficulties in applying constitutional principles to specific criminal justice situations. Each chapter of the text contains a realistic problem in the form of a fact pattern that focuses on one or more classic criminal justice issues to which readers can relate. These problems are presented from the points of view of citizens caught up in a police investigation and of police officers attempting to enforce the law within the framework of constitutional protections. This book is ideal for courses in criminal law and procedure that seek to focus on the philosophical underpinnings of the system.




Basic Concepts of Criminal Law


Book Description

In the United States today criminal justice can vary from state to state, as various states alter the Modern Penal Code to suit their own local preferences and concerns. In Eastern Europe, the post-Communist countries are quickly adopting new criminal codes to reflect their specific national concerns as they gain autonomy from what was once a centralized Soviet policy. As commonalities among countries and states disintegrate, how are we to view the basic concepts of criminal law as a whole? Eminent legal scholar George Fletcher acknowledges that criminal law is becoming increasingly localized, with every country and state adopting their own conception of punishable behavior, determining their own definitions of offenses. Yet by taking a step back from the details and linguistic variations of the criminal codes, Fletcher is able to perceive an underlying unity among diverse systems of criminal justice. Challenging common assumptions, he discovers a unity that emerges not on the surface of statutory rules and case law but in the underlying debates that inform them. Basic Concepts of Criminal Law identifies a set of twelve distinctions that shape and guide the controversies that inevitably break out in every system of criminal justice. Devoting a chapter to each of these twelve concepts, Fletcher maps out what he considers to be the deep structure of all systems of criminal law. Understanding these distinctions will not only enable students to appreciate the universal fundamental ideas of criminal law, but will enable them to understand the significance of local details and variations. This accessible illustration of the unity of diverse systems of criminal justice will provoke and inform students and scholars of law and the philosophy of law, as well as lawyers seeking a better understanding of the law they practice.




Defining Crimes


Book Description

This collection of original essays, by some of the best known contemporary criminal law theorists, tackles a range of issues about the criminal law's 'special part' - the part of the criminal law that defines specific offences. One of its aims is to show the importance, for theory as well as for practice, of focusing on the special part as well as on the general part which usually receives much more theoretical attention. Some of the issues covered concern the proper scope of the criminal law, for example how far should it include offences of possession, or endangerment? If it should punish only wrongful conduct, how can it justly include so-called 'mala prohibita', which are often said to involve conduct that is not wrongful prior to its legal prohibition? Other issues concern the ways in which crimes should be classified. Can we make plausible sense, for instance, of the orthodox distinction between crimes of basic and general intent? Should domestic violence be definedas a distinct offence, distinguished from other kinds of personal violence? Also examined are the ways in which specific offences should be defined, to what extent those definitions should identify distinctive types of wrongs, and the light that such definitional questions throw on the grounds and structures of criminal liability. Such issues are discussed in relation not only to such crimes as murder, rape, theft and other property offences, but also in relation to offences such as bribery, endangerment and possession that have not traditionally been subjects for in depth theoretical analysis.




The Constitution of the Criminal Law


Book Description

The third book in the Criminalization series examines the constitutionalization of criminal law. It considers how the criminal law is constituted through the political processes of the state; how the agents of the criminal law can be answerable to it themselves; and finally, how the criminal law can be constituted as part of the international order. Addressing the ways in which and the grounds on which types of conduct can be justifiably criminalized, the first four chapters of this volume focus on the questions that arise from a consideration of the political constitution of the criminal law. The contributors then turn their attention to the role of the state, its institutions and officials, and their role not only as creators, enactors, interpreters, and enforcers of the criminal law, but also as subjects of it. How can the agents of the criminal law also be answerable to it? Finally discussion turns to how the criminal law can be constituted as part of an international order. Examining the relationships between domestic laws of different nation-states, and between domestic criminal law and international or transnational law, the chapters also look at the authority and jurisdiction of international criminal law itself, and its relationship to other dimensions of the international order. A vital examination of one of the most important topics in modern criminal legal theory, this volume raises new questions central to the study of the criminal law and offers new suggestions for addressing them.




Criminal Law


Book Description

Criminal Law: Problems, Statutes, and Cases combines effective, innovative teaching methods, such as the use of problems and visual materials, with cases, including recent opinions on bias intimidation, possession of child pornography, threatening speech on social media, and theft of computer code. Key features include: A problem methodology. The book incorporates problem methodology with extensive use of problems, many based on recent cases. A statutory approach. A primary goal of the book is teaching skills in interpreting and, to a lesser degree, writing statutes. Visual materials. Visual materials include: (1) diagrammed crimes; (2) graphic exercises, such as having students create a timeline to compare and contrast various tests for the conduct element in attempt; and (3) video clip recommendations from a wide range of movies and TV shows such as The Wire and Breaking Bad.




The Impact of Regulatory Law on American Criminal Justice


Book Description

The Impact of Regulatory Law on American Criminal Justice is designed to provide the reader with an overview of American criminal justice from the perspective of regulatory law enforcement. Government's responsibility to defend the life and property of its citizens from victimization is accomplished through a code of criminal law enforced by a criminal justice system. In addition to laws that protect citizens, the government also enacts laws that criminalize certain behaviors that are deemed to be inconsistent with the best interests of society. These are called regulatory laws, and their effect on the criminal justice system and society are the main focus of the book. Each of the book's three sections addresses one aspect of the overall problem. The first looks at the underlying motivations to enact regulatory laws, particularly those dealing with drugs, prostitution and firearms and the evolution of their enforcement over time. The effect of regulatory law enforcement on each part of the criminal justice system, the police, courts and corrections is examined in the second section of the book. The final section provides insight into the societal outcomes associated with the enforcement of regulatory laws. The book reveals a number of unanticipated consequences resulting from regulatory laws. Most notable is the criminal justice system's lack of resources to effectively enforce and process violations of law. Police do not have enough officers to fully enforce all laws. Yet, they make more arrests than the courts can adequately adjudicate. The judicial process is so overwhelmed that it must rely on plea negotiations in order to circumvent the lengthy trial process thereby reducing criminal charges and/or terms of incarceration. Also, more people are convicted than the correctional facilities can house. Even so, America incarcerates a higher proportion of its population than any other country. Other criminal justice consequences of regulatory law include police corruption, overcrowded prisons and the domination by prison gangs as well as high rates of recidivism. Societal costs of incarceration are numerous and have had a particularly profound effect on minorities and disadvantaged communities in terms of poverty, lost human potential, contagious diseases both in and out of prison, 1.5 million children of current inmates and the perpetuation of a social underclass. The Teacher's Manual is available electronically on a CD or via email. Please contact Beth Hall at [email protected] to request a copy. PowerPoint slides are available upon adoption. Sample slides from the full, 171-slide presentation are available to view here. Email [email protected] for more information.




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