Criminal Law and Its Processes: Cases and Materials

by Sanford H. Kadish, Stephen J. Schulhofer, Carol S. Steiker

This edition preserves the outstanding qualities that have earned it distinguished success: - a highly respected authorship -- Kadish, Schulhofer, and new co-author Steiker -- comprised of nationally recognized and renowned scholars - cohesive intellectual framework -- by viewing the law both as a system for apportioning blame in accordance with moral norms and as an instrument of social control, it provides an analytical tool with which students can interpret and understand doctrine - a cases-and-notes pedagogy with excerpted materials, questions, and problems - a focus on developing an understanding of principles and rules applicable to all crimes, rather than the detailed and disjointed elements of many particular crimes - problems that enhance student understanding of the basic principles by testing their applications and interactions in the context of particular offenses - in-depth coverage of rape, homicide, and theft The Eighth Edition has been carefully updated: - it achieves continuity with its predecessors and makes little change in organization or coverage - most principal teaching cases have been retained, with recent cases and illustrations added - editing throughout enhances the transparency of the organization and accessibility of the notes and questions, providing greater clarity and ease of teaching - a new section gives detailed attention to issues of statutory interpretation - a new chapter on Discretion allows for study of the legal framework that governs charging, bargaining and sentencing, and the role they play in shaping determinations of culpability and punishment - greater attention is focused on the ways thatsentencing considerations and the growth of federal criminal law have affected traditional criminal law principles and practices - new attention is focused on international human rights and their implications for American criminal law - more thorough examination of common law vocabulary and doctrine and a clarified organization enable students to differentiate more systematically between the common law and Model Penal Code approaches - a completely revised section on the death penalty

Genres: Law, Textbooks, Nonfiction, Legal, School

1173 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1975

Reviews

[Rhodes · Rating 1 out of 5]

literally no explanation about what anything is followed by confusing opinions about the thing that wasn’t explained.

[mz · Rating 2 out of 5]

Although the voluminous notes and cases likely provide an apt view of the schizophrenic Anglo-American criminal law, I would have appreciated some better exposition of unifying themes.

[Camryn · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read every page of this book and I WILL get credit for it

[Ke · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found this book comprehensive and for the most part clear. The authors also selected interesting cases (e.g. bacon side-petty thief Hayes, page 693). Maybe my only quibble is that the authors seemed to be flogging their own research. It is understandable that they would include their work (you write what you know), but I found that the book's coverage of material weighed unusually on the authors' side. Maybe the authors could have included more work by their critics.

[Charles McGonigal · Rating 1 out of 5]

Terrible textbook. But at least the lead author got to excerpt himself a lot - that must have been nice.

[Logan · Rating 1 out of 5]

Extremely frustrating for a 1L student to follow, as the mind-blind authors skip over any substantive explanations and go right into the philosophy and academic commentary of the issues. This is awesome, except for the fact the only folks who care about philosophy and academic commentary of legal concepts are philosophers and and academia commentators. In this book, there may be more interrogative statements than declaratory. In outlining for class, I took 30,000 words of notes for the exam based on the book. I deleted the document because it was so useless for a Criminal Law exam.

But at least I know about what Kadish thinks about Benthem's argument of the Utilitarian view of retribution punishment. Who cares. What is a Burglary? I still don't know.

[Danny · Rating 4 out of 5]

First case: In re Winship 08/26/22

Final case: People v. Goetz 11/18/22

[SK]

Dostoevsky did it better.

[emily]

yeah I’m counting this bc I literally had to read every single page

[Josie Wu · Rating 3 out of 5]

policy reviews seemed a little one-sided

[ash]

DONE WITH CRIM 🙏🏻

[Bella DeFeo]

mama im in love with a criminal (luigi mangione)

[Edward · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read portions of this book for professor Bonventre's Criminal Law class at Albany Law school.

The book was a pleasure to read and gives a thorough account of the criminal process. The instruction I received focused mostly on the theories behind the criminal process. It was presented in a manner that made criminal law look very grey as opposed to the black and white structure of guilty or not guilty which was a very interesting thing.

[sambo · Rating 3 out of 5]

i learned that as an immigrant from a foreign land, if i ever commit a specific intent crime, i can raise a cultural defense to negate the requisite mens rea.

[Mathew]

so many good things

[Meredith · Rating 3 out of 5]

People do the most unusual things. And then, sometimes, they go to prison for doing so.

[Sara · Rating 1 out of 5]

Actually one of the better law books because it's not just case law, but it talks about legal theories and different schools of thought along with the progression of the law.

[Hannah · Rating 2 out of 5]

We didn't use the book much in class.

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting cases, but very dense and thin-paged (bad match for highlighters!).

[Kate · Rating 3 out of 5]

Murder and manslaughter and rape, oh my!

[Elizabeth Pyjov · Rating 5 out of 5]

I would seriously read portions of this for pleasure - the philosophy of it is so good.

[Annie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pretty good casebook. For, you know, a casebook.