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Introduction To Book Iv, Thomas A. Green

Other Publications

The final volume of Blackstone's Commentaries sets forth a·lucid survey of crime and criminal procedure informed by those propositions concerning English law and the relations between man and state that characterize the entire work. Perhaps no area of the law so tested Blackstone's settled and complacent views as did the criminal law, particularly the large and growing body of statutory capital crimes. In the end, Blackstone failed to demonstrate that English criminal law reflected a coherent set of principles, but his intricate and often internally contradictory attempt nevertheless constitutes a classic description of that law, and can still be read …

Review Of Crime In England, 1550-1800, Thomas A. Green

Reviews

Crime in England, 1550-1800, is the second collection of essays on the social history of crime and the criminal law in early modern England to appear in recent years. Together with the essays in Albion's Fatal Tree (1975),' these offerings advance our knowledge of the subject considerably. To be sure, as G. R. Elton cautions, there are methodological problems in a field so new, and Elton's "Introduction" will serve as an excellent starting point for readers concerned with such matters. We must nevertheless recognize the accomplishments of the new school of socio-legal historians. The essays in this volume deal with …

Government Appeals In Criminal Cases: The 1978 Decisions, Edward H. Cooper

Articles

The statute allowing the government to appeal from some forms of trial court defeat in criminal cases, 18 U.S.C.A. § 3731, has a long and tangled history. In its 1970 opinion in United States v. Sisson 9ui the Supreme Court wrestled mightily with a difficult problem under the statute as it then stood, and invited Congress to amend "this awkward and ancient Act." Soon afterward the act was amended. It now provides in part that the government may appeal in a criminal case

from a decision, judgment, or order of a district court dismissing an indictment or information as to …