This casebook provides the most comprehensive treatment available, including the theoretical foundations, the common-law origins, the statutory structure, and the procedural context of modern criminal law. The book concentrates on doctrinal materials that can support both rigorous technical and sophisticated theoretical discussions. The purposes and limits of punishment are addressed through Supreme Court decisions, a focus on statutes throughout the substantive law sections enables training students in the legal art of statutory interpretation as well as exposing them to the hard moral and political problems of legislative choice, and the sentencing materials reprise the theory of punishment in the context of the practically most important stage of the modern process. The 12th edition carries forward the comprehensive approach of prior editions, empowering the teacher to design a course suited to the needs of the teacher's students and teacher's institution. New Supreme Court's decisions, changing the landscape of both substance and procedure, include Skilling v. United States, McDonald v. City of Chicago, Graham v. Florida, United States v. Jones, and Michigan v. Bryant. The material on self-defense has been comprehensively revised, both for the sake of clarity and to include discussion of so-called "stand your ground laws." Statutes (e.g., the New York and California homicide statutes) and the caselaw (e.g., up-to-the-minute material on "willful blindness") have been updated. We also now include a case about the admissibility of neuro-imaging evidence to support a diminished-capacity defense, thus acknowledging how modern brain science has begun to raise both practical evidentiary issues and a substantial challenge to important theoretical premises of the criminal law.

Premised on the belief that criminal law is an exciting subject to learn and teach, this popular casebook provides a balanced and creative overview of classic and modern criminal law cases and issues while covering both common law foundations and modern statutory reform, including the Model Penal Code. The casebook invites classroom consideration of many controversies in the field (e.g., rape law, race-based jury nullification, Internet crime, and anti-stalking legislation) and defenses (e.g., battered women?s self-defense). Using imaginative examples from literature and music to illustrate criminal law issues (e.g., examining insanity with Edgar Allen Poe?s The Tell-Tale Heart and homicide with Willa Cather?s O Pioneers!), the casebook allows law students to confront some of the Big Questions with which philosophers, theologians, scientists, poets, and lawyers have grappled for centuries.

This text, the only criminal law casebook authored by two progressive female law professors of color, provides the reader with both critical race and critical feminist theory perspectives on criminal law. The book focuses on the cultural context of substantive criminal law, integrating issues of race, gender, class, and sexual orientation where relevant

This casebook relies on Tennessee-specific statutes and cases to illustrate how abstract concepts of criminal law play out on the ground. The role of prosecutors in defining the law through their charging and plea bargaining decisions is emphasized throughout. The mental elements of crimes are analyzed in context, illustrating how the same mental element will be proven differently depending on whether the defendant knew, for instance, that he had stolen goods or illegal drugs. By mooring the discussion to the Tennessee Code, rather than the Model Penal Code, this book is a very practical text for law students in Tennessee without sacrificing any of the philosophical discussions that are central to criminal law.

The strength of this casebook is the uniformity of each chapter's structure, which makes it easier to approach the chapter's topic systematically. Each chapter begins with several sections that discuss the applicable law, followed by a separate section that discusses the Model Penal Code's approach to the topic. This is then followed by a "Comparative Perspectives" section that encourages students to think about alternative ways of approaching the topic. The richness of the comparative materials used in the casebook is unmatched by its competitors, as many of the materials have been translated by the author. Finally, each chapter ends with a section titled "Scholarly Debates" that introduces the student to some of the philosophical discussions related to the topic.