Author Description

This popular casebook, through the selection of classic and modern cases, provides an excellent tool for teaching students the common law foundations of the criminal law and modern statutory reforms, including the Model Penal Code. Along the way, the casebook considers modern controversies (e.g., "shaming" punishment, capital punishment, broadening sexual assault law, self-defense by battered women, police use of force in making arrests, euthanasia, the role of culture in determining culpability), offers exceptionally helpful and interesting (sometimes even humorous) Notes and Questions to guide students, and even "brain teasers" to confront (as the Preface states) "the Big Questions... that philosophers, theologians, scientists, and poets, as well as lawyers, have grappled with for centuries." The Ninth Edition, as in the past, includes new cases, as well as updates in the Notes that bring current criminal justice to the fore.