Criminal Law

Criminal Law Synopsis

The tenth edition of this casebook — which began in 1973 with Professor Fred E. Inbau— includes two new chapters that modernize the study of criminal law. The first new chapter analyzes the law of drug possession and distribution and includes cases about the law of constructive possession, the line between possession and distribution, and the challenge of computing drug quantity. The tenth edition also includes a new chapter on driving while intoxicated, a crime that is central to the criminal justice system but which is absent from every other criminal law casebook. We challenge students to unpack each element of DWI statutes by determining what constitutes a vehicle, what qualifies as operation, what it means to be intoxicated, and what counts as a public road. In addition, the new DWI chapter also explores the difficult statutory interpretation issues created by the texting while driving statutes that have recently been enacted across the country. This is the first casebook to offer an in depth exploration of these modern offenses that account for millions of arrests and citations each year. At the same time, the book retains the core common law crimes and classic cases that are a staple of traditional criminal law courses.

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