Law Commons^™

A Reasoned Approach To The Reform Of Sex Offense Legislation, Ronald B. Schram

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Currently there is a widespread movement toward the revision of state criminal codes. The goals of such an undertaking are varied: (1) to reduce the size of the criminal law by eliminating inconsistent, overlapping, or obsolete provisions; (2) to phrase the prohibitions in clear and concise language; (3) to introduce more modern approaches to the definition and treatment of criminal offenses; and (4) to harmonize the penalty imposed for a particular act with the severity of the act and the penalty for other acts. This paper will concentrate on sex offenses in an attempt to understand the legislative process of …

Theft, Law And Society -- 1968, Jerome Hall

Articles by Maurer Faculty

The law of theft has long been the most complicated branch of the criminal law, writes Mr. Hall, and this is so in the face of the fact that crimes against property can he estimated safely as accounting for 90 per cent of all genuine crime in this country. The Model Penal Code has done much to simplify the law of theft and to eliminate outmoded distinctions, the author concedes, but he maintains that distinctions still must be recognized among the various types of theft, the persons involved in theft and the appropriate penalties for various crimes against property. Improvement, …

Two Kinds Of Legal Rules: A Comparative Study Of Burden-Of-Persuasion Practices In Criminal Cases, George P. Fletcher

Faculty Scholarship

Good men everywhere praise the presumption of innocence. And be they Frenchmen, Germans, or Americans, they agree on the demand of the presumption in practice. Both here and abroad, the state's invocation of criminal sanctions demands a high degree of proof that the accused has committed the offense charged. To express the requisite standard of proof, common lawyers speak of the prosecutor's duty to prove his case beyond a reasonable doubt. And Continental lawyers invoke the maxim in dubio pro reo – a precept requiring triers of fact to acquit in cases of doubt.

The French speak of the presomption …