Cases and Materials on Criminal Law (American Casebook Series)

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 reform 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 euthanasia the role of culture in determining culpability) and creatively uses literature (e.g. examining insanity through Edgar Allen Poes The Tell-Tale Heart) 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 Eighth Edition as in the past includes new cases as well as updates in the notes that bring current issues of criminal law to the fore.