Modern Criminal Law: Cases, Comments and Questions

Wayne R. LaFave, University of Illinois College of Law

Ric Simmons, Ohio State University College of Law

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1. The organization of book now tracks more closely to that of a standard first-year criminal law class.
2. Each chapter now contains a brief introduction providing the reader with a broad overview of the upcoming material.
3. The first chapter now contains a discussion on the history and purpose of the criminal law, as well as an overview of different sentencing philosophies.
4. The second chapter has a renewed focus on statutory interpretation, which is a critical aspect of the first year Criminal Law course.
5. Throughout the discussions of the fundamental criminal law concepts, the book adds examples and hypotheticals before providing the students with multiple new cases to see the concepts in practice.
6. The materials on rape have been updated to reflect the changes in this rapidly evolving area of criminal law.
7. The chapters on defenses have been restructured to divide defenses into categories of justification and excuse, which allows every major defense (self-defense, insanity, etc.) to be examined in depth.
8. A comprehensive teacher’s manual now accompanies the book, which includes suggestions for teaching each of the chapters, student exercises and problems to use in the classroom, references to film clips that illustrate specific criminal law principles, brief writing assignments, and sample exam questions.

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