Criminal Law Development, Theory and Codification (Robinson)
Faculty
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| Paul H. Robinson Colin S. Diver Professor of Law phr@law.upenn.edu |
Additional Information
Skills Training
Other Professional Skills: Code reading and interpretation.
Grading
15% Participation,
85% Exam
Exam
Short Answer,
Essay,
In Class,
Partial Open Book (The final exam is a time-limited exam during which students may only consult the Model Penal Code pamphlet provided.)
No
Class meets in person.
Course Continuity
Students are encouraged to stay home if you are ill or experience flu-like symptoms. If you miss a class for any reason, it is still your responsibility to make up the work missed.
I offer the following to students who miss class due to illness:
- Class sessions are regularly recorded. I will make these recordings routinely available on the course site to everyone in the class.
Meeting Times/Location
MT 10:30AM - 11:50AM
Golkin Hall 238
Category
Upper-Level
Credits
3.0
CRIMINAL LAW DEVELOPMENT, THEORY & CODIFICATION Law 794-001-26C – Professor Robinson Mondays and Tuesdays 10:30 AM - 11:50 AM
Criminal law’s rules and conceptual foundations have shifted significantly over the past several centuries. And those developments have played out differently in different parts of the United States. This course explores the nature of criminal law’s underlying principles, its development, as well as the resulting diversity of rules. The course will examine the diversity across the 52 American jurisdictions as well as the process of changing societal norms and criminal law rules over time. It will also examine the application of criminal statutes to a wide variety of famous criminal cases from a variety of periods, including such cases as the shootout at the OK Corral, Lincoln’s assassination, the Hatfield-McCoy feud, Vanderbilt’s market manipulation, as well as cases involving famous people from earlier eras – such as the Marquis de Sade, Oscar Wilde, Billy the Kid, Aaron Burr, Lewis Carroll, Mafia boss Joe Bananas, and entertainers Bette Davis, Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley, Ike and Tina Turner, and pornographer Larry Flynt. The course covers a full range of criminal law topics – general principles of liability, general defenses, and specific offenses – with special focus on those that illustrate the law’s and society’s shift in values. The readings for each topic include a summary of the governing law and its development, a review of the current state of the law in different U.S. jurisdictions, and an examination of the law in action using a pair of matched cases, one historic and one modern. The coursebook is the recently published American Criminal Law: Its People, Principles & Evolution (Routledge). Optional background readings are available in Robinson & Cahill, Criminal Law, 2nd Edition (Wolters Kluwer 2012) – it is possible the new 3rd Edition will be available by the beginning of the semester. The course has an in-class final examination. (The seminar is open to nonlaw students upon permission of the instructor. Write to phr@law.upenn.edu.)
Criminal Law and Procedure Learning outcomes: Demonstrate a core understanding of criminal law and procedure; Perform legal analysis in the context of criminal law and procedure; Communicate effectively on topics related to criminal law and procedure; Demonstrate an understanding of the role criminal law and procedure play in society and their impact on other areas of law and society.
Textbooks
"American Criminal Law: Its People, Principles & Evolution" by Paul H Robinson and Sarah M Robinson |