Criminal Law –
“For a high quality Criminal
Law Educational Product, look for ‘DRESSLER’
on the label.”
Then again, if I wrote a
casebook or some other kind of academic text, I wouldn’t exactly be standing
behind my product if I didn’t use it in my own classes. The money I’d make off having my own classes
buy the book would be a drop in the bucket if it’s a widely used book.
Administrative Business
for the Small Section
Change in Office Hours: No
Monday office hours…but come by any time.
Scheduling changes: Most
important purpose…put them in your calendar or whatever.
The Journal of Criminal Law
is new. Dressler is the managing
editor.
Small Section vs. Big Section
– there must be a writing assignment that carries weight in the final grade (a
small percentage).
The writing assignment will
be 10% and your final exam will count 90%...then it may be adjusted for class
participation, etc. The writing
assignment will be handed out on October 13th.
About TWEN – The stuff that Dressler emphasizes on TWEN is the stuff
he thinks is important.
Notes and Questions – Read over and think about all of the Notes and
Questions in the casebook.
Background on the Class
“This is the best class you’ll
take in your first year.” – Prof. Dressler
You can relate to it, unlike
Civil Procedure, for example.
This class asks all of the “Big
Questions”. When should we blame people
for stuff? What about free will vs.
determinism?
The dedication page: you can
learn a whole bunch of laws and rules, but there’s a lot more to it than
that. Criminal law is really connected
to a bunch of other academic disciplines.
For example, you have to look at cases in historical context. Though we won’t study history, philosophy,
rhetoric, etc. in this class, hopefully we will apply what we’ve learned in our
undergraduate studies (e.g. Economics of Crime).
Moritz is known for being
rather interdisciplinary.
James Boyd Wright: Legal
knowledge is a different kind of knowledge than the kind found in other
disciplines. It’s not just a set of
facts or rules to be memorized. It
involves analysis and argumentation.
Wright likens knowledge of
the law to knowledge of a language: you’ll never know it all or know it
perfectly. This should be a comfort. What matters is how you use it.
Law doesn’t go after
truth. It doesn’t follow a scientific
method for reaching a true answer.
Wright says that law is after justice above truth.
Wright finally concludes that
lawyers are in a deep sense writers.
Any case that ends up at
trial has reasonable arguments for both sides.
Criminal Law is not just:
Did A shoot B? It
also asks why A did it and how morally culpable A is.
The most important tool
you will use in the law is words.
What We Will Study
1.
Common
Law – Judge-made law – the basis
of what we learn. The Anglo-American common
law is the root of the modern criminal justice system.
2.
The
Model Penal Code – The most
important 20th century effort to provide a new and better way to
think about Criminal Law. Some states
have adopted it, some have adopted parts of it, and still others are off in
another world (e.g.
3.
Constitutional
Law – The supreme law of the
land. Relatively little Con Law in
Criminal Law.
4.
Statutes
from various jurisdictions – We won’t be tested on these, but we need to
understand that in the present day, pretty much all law is now statutory. The common law has basically been grafted
onto the statutes. We’ll be reading
statutes and we need to pay attention to them, but we won’t be tested on them. But we will be tested on our ability to read
a statute and work with it.
“I love the West. Everybody ought to be there, in my opinion.”
The yellow index card: put
your name at the top. Then…write
something about yourself.