Guyora Binder

Robert Weisberg

John Kaplan

Buy a new version of this Connected Casebook and receive access to the online e-book, practice questions from your favorite study aids, and an outline tool on CasebookConnect, the all in one learning solution for law school students. CasebookConnect offers you what you need most to be successful in your law school classes— portability, meaningful feedback, and greater efficiency. Criminal Law: Cases and Materials has long been respected for its distinguished authorship. The late John Kaplan’s extraordinary work continues with the scholarship of Robert Weisberg and Guyora Binder in the Ninth Edition. This casebook’s renowned interdisciplinary approach fuels class discussion as it enriches study. Logically organized, the text addresses the purposes and limits of punishment and considers the meaning and types of crime. Well-edited cases, interesting materials, and clear notes combine with cutting-edge issues and important social questions, such as whom and why we punish. Especially strong are the sections addressing the phenomenon of mass incarceration (including the movement towards prison abolition), the theme of and challenges to racial justice in our criminal law system, and the evolution of our laws on sexual assault. New to the Ninth Edition: Addition of up-to-date empirical and public policy research as well as expanded discussion of the role of constitutional law in the criminalization of homelessness, and issues of racial justice on such topics as criminal liability of police for use of lethal force and the controversies over citizen’s arrest powers. Incorporation of new feminist research in such areas as battered women’s self-defense and sexual assault (including treatment of the ongoing efforts to revise the Model Penal Code laws on rape). New historically informed treatment of felony murder, including legislative and judicial developments in reform and possible abolition of felony murder doctrine. Updated notes and questions aimed at improving the casebook’s usefulness for exam preparation. New case law on the challenges of applying criminal law in the Internet world on such topics as possession of child pornography images and criminal conduct through cyber-messaging. A fresh new analytic guide on “impossible attempts”, designed to assist students with this perennially challenging doctrine. Professors and student will benefit from: Strong authorship team: The late John Kaplan, a storied teacher and scholar; Weisberg and Binder, noted scholars in criminal law An interdisciplinary approach Well-edited cases, interesting materials, and clear notes Logical organization “Snapshot Review” exercises to aid students in exam preparation. Teaching materials Include: Improved Teacher’s Manual designed to make casebook accessible and useful for new professors. Includes suggested answers to “Snapshot Review” questions. CasebookConnect features: ONLINE E-BOOK Law school comes with a lot of reading, so access your enhanced e-book anytime, anywhere to keep up with your coursework. Highlight, take notes in the margins, and search the full text to quickly find coverage of legal topics. PRACTICE QUESTIONS Quiz yourself before class and prep for your exam in the Study Center. Practice questions from Examples & Explanations, Emanuel Law Outlines, Emanuel Law in a Flash flashcards, and other best-selling study aid series help you study for exams while tracking your strengths and weaknesses to help optimize your study time. OUTLINE TOOL Most professors will tell you that starting your outline early is key to being successful in your law school classes. The Outline Tool automatically populates your notes and highlights from the e-book into an editable format to accelerate your outline creation and increase study time later in the semester.

Cases and Materials

Criminal Law

The felony murder doctrine is one of the most widely criticized features of American criminal law. Legal scholars almost unanimously condemn it as irrational, concluding that it imposes punishment without fault and presumes guilt without proof. Despite this, the law persists in almost every U.S. jurisdiction. Felony Murder is the first book on this controversial legal doctrine. It shows that felony murder liability rests on a simple and powerful idea: that the guilt incurred in attacking or endangering others depends on one's reasons for doing so. Inflicting harm is wrong, and doing so for a bad motive—such as robbery, rape, or arson—aggravates that wrong. In presenting this idea, Guyora Binder criticizes prevailing academic theories of criminal intent for trying to purge criminal law of moral judgment. Ultimately, Binder shows that felony murder law has been and should remain limited by its justifying aims.

Felony Murder

Many controversies in American criminal law reflect the tension between older and newer conceptions of the purposes of punishment. The English common law of crimes enforced a royal peace by conditioning punishment on unauthorized force and harm to particular victims. The story of American criminal law has been the emergence of a more utilitarian conception of criminal offending as the imposition of risk or the violation of consent, combined with culpability. This conception is reflected in the Model Penal Code and many state codes. Yet understanding contemporary criminal law requires that we also remember the model of offending as trespass against sovereignty out of which it emerged. The Oxford Introductions to U.S. Law: Criminal Law reviews the development of American criminal law and explains its key concepts and persistent controversies in light of its history. These key concepts include retribution and prevention as purposes of punishment; the requirements of a criminal act and a culpable mental state; criteria of causal responsibility; modes of violating consent; inchoate offenses, including attempt and conspiracy; doctrines of participation in crime; and defenses of justification and excuse.

Guyora Binder

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