Introduction to Criminal Law and Procedure
 | Sixteenth-century punishments, a woodcut from Tengler, Laienspiegel (Mainz, 1508) |
Course Content
The subject will introduce students to the criminal law and its administration in the Australian context. Besides examining in detail the major legal categories of criminal offence, the principal defences against criminal liability and other important principles (attempt, complicity, etc) governing the attribution of criminal responsibility, the course seeks to examine, in historical and comparative perspective, the major institutions, procedures and processes involved in the administration of criminal justice, including the concept of punishment and the process of sentencing.
Objectives
To promote a critical understanding of the following -
the concept of crime and the role of criminal law and criminal justice in a pluralist, liberal democratic society;
the notion of criminal responsibility and the diverse rules, institutions and rationales governing the attribution of criminal responsibility;
the legal elements of major and diverse categories of criminal offence as embodied in Australian (particularly NSW) laws;
the principal agencies, procedures and routines involved in the administration of criminal justice, in particular in the policing and prosecution of crime, the adjudication of guilt and the sentencing of convicted offenders;
the historical development and peculiar character of criminal justice in the common law world and the principal ways in which it diverges from some other legal systems in the world;
Additional Recommended Materials
(a)
Loose Leaf services
(b) Aspects of Administration of
Criminal Justice
(c) Wrongful Conviction
Prescribed Text and Materials
The text prescribed for the course is D. Brown, D. Farrier, D. Neal and D. Weisbrot, Criminal Laws, 3rd edition, Federation Press, 2001. This will be available for purchase from the Coop Bookshop.
In addition the course will make considerable use of additional materials, which will also be available for purchase from the Coop Bookshop. These will be accompanied, in each volume, by a study guide. Volumes One and Two of the Study Guide and Materials (covering all of first semester) will be available in the bookshop before the beginning of semester.
The study guide organises the course on a week by week and class by class basis. Generally speaking each class is organised around a particular topic, readings from the text and/or the materials and a cluster of issues or themes.
Additional Recommended Materials
The following is a selective list of texts and other works of relevance to your studies in Criminal Law and Procedure. The study guide and the text will refer to yet further recommended reading for specific topics.
It is hoped that the prescribed text and materials will stimulate you to read widely in areas that you find to be of particular interest.
The following is a list of criminal law texts.
J. Clough and C. Mulhern, Criminal Law, Butterworths Tutorial Series, 1999.
E. Edwards, R. Harding and I. Campbell, The Criminal Codes, 4th ed. Law Book Co. 1992.
M. Findlay, S. Odgers and S. Yeo, Australian Criminal Justice, Oxford University Press, 1994.
B. Fisse, Howard's Criminal Law, 5th ed. Law Book Co. 1990.
P. Gillies, Criminal Law, 3rd ed. Law Book Co. 1993.
* J. Hunter and K. Cronin, Evidence, Advocacy and Ethical Practice - a Criminal Law Commentary, Butterworths, 1995.
N. Lacey, C. Wells and D. Meure, Reconstructing Criminal Law, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1990.
D. Lanham, Cross-Border Criminal Law, FT Law and Tax, 1997.
* A. Leaver, Investigating Crime - a Guide to the Powers of Agencies Involved in the Investigation of Crime, LBC Information Services, 1997.
A. Norrie, Crime, Reason and History, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1992.
** P. Rush, Criminal Law, Butterworth Casebook Companions, 1997.
D. Sweeney and N. Williams, Commonwealth Criminal Law, Federation Press, 1990.
L. Waller and C. Williams, Brett, Waller and Williams, Criminal Law - Text and Cases, 7th ed. Butterworths, 1993.
C. Williams and M. Weinberg, Property Offences, 2nd ed. Law Book Co. 1986.
G. Williams, Textbook of Criminal Law, 2nd ed. Stevens and Son, 1983.
P. Zahra and R. Arden, Drug Law in New South Wales, Federation Press, 1991.
The following are loose leaf services you may find useful at various stages -
Watson and Purnell, Criminal Law in New South Wales, 2nd ed. Law Book Co. 1981-.
Criminal Law, Practice and Procedure in NSW, Butterworths, 1989.
Halsbury's Laws of Australia, Butterworths.
The following are books of interest which examine aspects of the administration of criminal justice from various empirical and/or theoretical perspectives -
A. Ashworth, Sentencing and Criminal Justice, Wiedenfeld and Nicolson, 1992.
J. Baldwin and M. McConville, Courts, Prosecution and Conviction, Clarendon, 1981.
J. Braithwaite, Crime, Shame and Reintegration, Cambridge University Press, 1989.
J. Braithwaite and P. Pettit, Not Just Deserts, Clarendon, 1990.
N. Lacey, State Punishment, Routledge, 1988.
M. Maguire, R. Morgan and R. Reiner, The Oxford Handbook of Criminology, Clarendon, 1994.
D. McBarnet, Conviction, Macmillan, 1980.
M. McConville, et.al. The Case for the Prosecution, Routledge, 1991.
H. McRae, G. Nettheim and L. Beacroft, Aboriginal Legal Issues, Law Book Co. 1991.
H. Packer, The Limits of the Criminal Sanction, Standford University Press, 1968.
J. Skolnick, Justice Without Trial, 2nd ed. John Wiley, 1975.
D. Chappell and P. Wilson, The Australian Criminal Justice System: the mid 1990s, Butterworths, 1993.
The following books examine particular cases of wrongful conviction and the general issues raised by them -
T. Anderson, Take Two, Bantam Books, 1992.
M. Brown and P. Wilson, Justice and Nightmares, NSW University Press, 1992.
J. Bryson, Evil Angels, Viking Press, 1985.
K. Carrington, et.al. (eds) Travesty! Miscarriages of Justice in Australia, Pluto Press, 1992.
A. MacLeod-Lindsay, An Ordinary Man, Hale and Iremonger, 1984.
B. Woffinden, Miscarriages of Justice, Coronet, 1990.