Criminal Law

The Center for Computer-Assisted Legal Instruction (CALI) hosts and facilitates the creation of CALI Lessons, a library of over 950 interactive legal tutorials written by law professors and geared towards law students. CALI is a 501(c)(3) non-profit consortium of law schools, law libraries and related organizations. Almost every United States law school is a member of CALI and they make up the bulk of our membership.

This course covers the law of crimes and the criminal justice system, including the criminal act and the mental element in crime, consideration of specific offenses as defined by statute and the common law, and discussion of typical defenses.

This study aid features an innovative method of content organization. It uses a checklist format to lead students through questions they need to ask to fully evaluate the legal problem they are trying to solve. It also synthesizes the material in a way that most students are unable to do on their own, and assembles the different issues, presenting a clear guide to procedural analysis that students can draw upon when writing their exams. Other study aids provide sample problems, but none offer the systematic approach to problem solving found in this book.

Black Letter Outlines are designed to help a law student recognize and understand the basic principles and issues of law covered in a law school course. Black Letter Outlines can be used both as a study aid when preparing for classes and as a review of the subject matter when studying for an examination. Each Black Letter Outline is written by experienced law school professors who are recognized national authorities in their subject area. This Outline covers the basic components of all crimes, as well as defenses to crimes. The offenses of criminal homicide, sexual assault, and the theft crimes are covered in detail. The Outline covers common law doctrine, modern statutory trends, and the Model Penal Code.

Black Letter Outlines are designed to help a law student recognize and understand the basic principles and issues of law covered in a law school course. Black Letter Outlines can be used both as a study aid when preparing for classes and as a review of the subject matter when studying for an examination. Each Black Letter Outline is written by experienced law school professors who are recognized national authorities in their subject area.

LaFave and Ohlin’s Criminal Law, 7th Edition is designed to function as the ideal Hornbook resource for the student studying Criminal Law. The book includes comprehensive treatment of all doctrines covered in the basic first-year Criminal Law course, regardless of which textbook the instructor uses. The materials are flexible and not keyed to a specific casebook. Doctrines are carefully explained and are thus ideal for out-of-class study to supplement more discussion-oriented casebook materials. Core topics of the Hornbook include:
The underlying goals and purposes of the criminal law, including tensions between crime control and due process.
Principles of statutory interpretation relevant to penal statutes.
The competing rationales for criminal punishment, constitutional constraints related to sentencing, especially as regards to capital punishment and sentencing guidelines, and mental competency to stand trial.
A comprehensive treatment of substantive crimes, not just “core crimes” such as all forms of homicide and sexual assault, but also all substantive offenses tested on the bar exam, including assault, battery, theft, robbery, burglary, kidnapping, and arson, and any other offense that might be included on a Criminal Law syllabus, including disorderly conduct, trespassing, and harassment.
Modes of liability, including not just accomplice and conspiracy liability, but also solicitation and felony murder. The materials explore recent changes to the law in this area, including California’s repeal of the felony murder rule.
Inchoate offenses, including not just attempts, but also solicitation and conspiracy as inchoate substantive offenses.
Doctrinal coverage of every justification and excuse, including self-defense, defensive force by police officers, necessity, duress, and insanity—including the competing doctrines for evaluating insanity arguments, and partial defenses such as diminished capacity.

This guide helps you gain an overview of and develop perspective on the area of criminal law. It is organized into eight sections for quick reference. Expert discussion explores punishment, specific crimes, and the ingredients of a crime such as mens rea and actus reus. Other topics covered include special defenses, the burden of proof, and inchoate and group criminality. It also reflects on the limitations of criminal law.

This collection of case stories illustrates the balance, continuity, and evolution in substantive criminal law doctrine in light of the social and political contexts in which those doctrines are perennially tested.

This title contains more than one hundred essay questions, some of which focus on specific subject areas, and some of which examine a number of interwoven topics. Together, these questions survey all of the material covered in a typical criminal law course. Each question is accompanied by a comprehensive model answer that can be used to foster a deeper understanding of criminal law, and to show students exactly how to apply the rules they learned in class on an actual exam.

This study aid contains more than 200 multiple-choice questions, some of which focus on specific subject areas, and some of which are mixed together in practice exams covering multiple topics. Together, these questions survey most of the material covered in a typical criminal law course.Each question is accompanied by a detailed and thorough explanation of what is the correct answer and what is not. These answers can be used to foster a deeper understanding of criminal law and to show students exactly how to apply the rules they learned in class on an actual multiple-choice exam.

The topics discussed in this criminal law outline are elements of crimes (including actus reus, mens rea, and causation), vicarious liability, complicity in crime, criminal liability of corporations, and defenses (including insanity, diminished capacity, intoxication, ignorance, and self-defense). Also included are inchoate crimes, homicide, other crimes against the person, crimes against habitation (including burglary and arson), crimes against property, offenses against the government, and offenses against the administration of justice.

This title provides an introduction to issues arising in international and transnational crimes, giving students a broader perspective on a developing area of the law. The book also provides faculty and students with material from domestic and international sources. It builds on a number of subjects treated in the traditional criminal law class, such as mens rea, actus reus, accomplice and conspiratorial liability, and defenses, by analyzing three subjects of current interest: transnational crimes, terrorism, and genocide.

This four-hour audio lecture on criminal law is useful for students who are about to take or are currently taking a course in Criminal Law and who want to use it for class review or exam preparation. But it is also useful for anyone, student or not, who would simply like to gain a more informed sense of just what American criminal law is all about. Coverage includes the traditional, foundational doctrines of criminal law like criminal intent and criminal act, discussing these concepts in dealing with crimes like homicide offenses, assault and sexual assault, theft and other property crimes. This lecture also focuses on traditional and modern defenses to criminal charges, like insanity, self defense, and the modern “Stand Your Ground” laws. But just as important as discussion of these crimes and defenses, the lecture also covers some of the most significant structural issues and skills that should be useful to you to figure out how criminal trials work, issues like distinguishing the roles of lawyers, judges, jurors and legislators, and skills like applying criminal statutes to particular cases and analyzing appellate decisions. Some useful tips on studying for and taking Criminal Law exams are included at the end.

Expertly written to provide comprehensive coverage of the most crucial issues in a course, the Concise Hornbook Series features concise analyses by prominent scholars of basic areas of the law. The Series focuses on core principles and concepts fundamental to understanding the subject matter. LaFave's Principles of Criminal Law provides detailed discussion on the topics of responsibility, justification and excuse, inchoate crimes and accomplice liability. The book also gives attention to subjects such as causation, insanity and conspiracy.

Sum and Substance Quick Review is a short, clear, concise, and substantive outline. It is designed to make the study of law clear and convenient, and it is designed to help students prepare for their law school exams. The main body is an outline of the substantive content that a student needs to prepare for a law school exam. The concise format provides a "Big Picture" overview allowing students to review the subject quickly prior to final exams.

This book leaves newcomers to criminal law with what they need most: key concepts they can remember! Too many criminal law guides bury the novice in detailed rules when nine times out of ten mastery of the fundamental concepts is the key to success on the exam or in practice. Remembering these concepts is made easier by a “forest before the trees” organization and the use of quirky, often funny examples that stick the concepts to the reader’s memory. Outlines of key doctrinal points for each chapter are included. You'll laugh and learn. Bonus chapters offer valuable tips for students on how to succeed in the study of the law. This third edition includes updates to the doctrines of felony murder, rape, and diminished capacity and a short section on abolitionism.

This audio lecture overviews the sources and nature of criminal law. Examines the theories of punishment, actus reus, mens rea, mistake of fact, and actual and proximate causation. Also addresses all of the major defenses and the concepts of inchoate and accessory liability. The Sum & Substance Audio Series allows you to assimilate the essentials of the course at your convenience - listen while working, commuting, exercising or just relaxing. The information and ideas you struggled with previously are now brought to life simply and succinctly. The audio lecture provides Quick Reference Indexing, allowing you to quickly locate every topic in the entire recording. Also provided are exam tips to maximize your performance and Lifetime guarantee. These audio lectures are time saving, convenient and effective.

Gain the advantages of office hours with professors on your own schedule! The West Academic Office Hours series is a collection of short audio and video tracks that tackle some of the thorniest questions plaguing law students. The professors answer students’ most frequently asked office hour questions. With clear and easy-to-understand explanations, these professors will help you reach that “lightbulb” moment of comprehension, just as they have with their own students in their own offices. You now have virtual faculty explanations available at the click of a button! The Office Hours series features a variety of notable law faculty explaining these tough topics in new and thoughtful ways.

The Step-by-Step Guide to Criminal Law is an interactive workbook designed to effectively prepare students to pass exams. The most heavily tested legal rules are presented in a format that mirrors the way they arise as issues in typical testing fact patterns. Rule statements are set out in easy-to-memorize statements, with a breakdown of the element components and logical steps to take to apply new facts to each legal element.

Fluency with the legal terminology is also essential to exam success, so this Step-by-Step Guide includes fill-in-the-blank spaces to help you learn and memorize definitions of key terms as they are introduced, and a glossary of selected terms at the end for further reference.

In addition to learning the law and memorizing key rules and terms, success in law school also requires the hard work of deep learning, engaging with problems to test your own knowledge, and working toward gaining a strong command of all testable topics. To that end, this Guide contains short-answer Test Yourself questions. Working through these questions and then reading the answers and explanations to determine where your understanding is clear and where you must do additional work will help you master the skill of applying the relevant rules to new and different fact patterns. In addition to the short-answer questions, this Guide also includes numerous full-length essay questions with sample answers —providing further practice to test your knowledge and deepen your learning.

The day has arrived and your name rings out in class. This is it. The cold call. What might your professor ask? Did you understand the case? Did you miss anything important? Are you prepared?

BARBRI & West Academic’s Cold Call Companion provides you with resources to critically analyze and brief a case, distill the main points of law, prepare for the kinds of questions professors may ask in class, and so much more. Included in each Cold Call Companion are:
Animated case brief videos that bring the facts to life;
A written case brief;
Advice for prepping for class discussion;
Contextual materials to offer additional color and background;
Test Yourself questions; and
Carefully curated sets of additional study materials to expand your knowledge of important concepts.

Confidently prepare for and engage in classroom discussion, and easily navigate to the best and more relevant study aids – right when you need them! Cold Call Companion is your essential prep for class.