Criminal Law: Cases and Materials

by Joshua Dressler, Stephen Garvey

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.

1154 pages, Hardcover

Published March 21, 2022

Reviews

[Jen Gomes · Rating 5 out of 5]

Yes, I read this entire book and yes I’m going to get credit for it. And yes it’s 5 stars.

[Jack Hofmann · Rating 5 out of 5]

Pretty solid. Honestly didn’t expect to be true crime

[taylor crampton · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am only logging the textbooks we read almost in their entirety. Look, it’s over a thousand pages. And I simultaneously was reading two other one thousand page books. I’m taking my reading challenge credit where it’s earned, thank you so much

[Monica · Rating 4 out of 5]

There were more feet in this one than I was expecting...

[lore · Rating 2 out of 5]

my least favorite casebook by far. this book spent way too much time going over theory when it really could have just been a single chapter at the very start of the book and not enough time actually explaining & developing concepts critical to the class. some of the cases didn't demonstrate the central concepts well. the organization of the cases in general felt very disjointed at times & a lot of cases were cropped, leaving out the background, facts, or even the holding. at times, cases literally were just used for quotes or definitions without bothering to elaborate on the facts, issues, holding, reasoning, etc. & this often made it difficult to figure out why we were reading a specific case for a specific concept. additionally, a lot of the notes after cases seemed somewhat unrelated & were more hypothetical & thought-provoking than explanatory. while provocation of thought & discussion is helpful & necessary, especially for a law school class, it felt like the reader was being thrown into the deep end without even having basic instructions or explanation and just had to keep their head over water & figure it out for themselves. it was really hard to learn crim law with this textbook & even after finishing the class, it feels like my understanding of the course concepts was somewhat stunted.