Author Description

This popular softcover book is designed to be used with a teacher's current casebook, with a criminal law treatise, or alone. Criminal cases are fascinating to law students because of the stories. Rather than using snippets from a large number of cases, Robinson has carefully chosen 22 cases that raise all of the issues typically covered in a first year criminal law course. He presents the whole story behind each case: the facts leading up to the offense, photographs and background information about the parties, etc. In this way, the author entices the students to think seriously about how the law should deal with the case. Professor Robinson developed this novel approach to teaching criminal law during his many years of teaching at Northwestern University and elsewhere. Once they know the full story of a case, their attention when analyzing the issues is better focused. He found that students have their own views on what should have happened to each defendant and want to know what happened in fact, and why. Even the roommates of students who used a pre publication version of these materials were reading the case studies and waiting to see what happened to the parties. Yet, while Criminal Law Case Studies takes a different approach, teachers will not have to do a great deal of additional preparation to use this book. The substantive law is no different-it is just presented in a way that is more accessible to students.