Publisher's Synopsis
The fourteenth edition continues the book's commitment to offering the most comprehensive, rigorous, and flexible materials on the American criminal process. With respect to the substantive criminal law, the new edition includes:
- Full case treatment of United States v. Davis, 139 S.Ct. 2319 (2019), illustrating the Supreme Court's continued commitment to a robust understanding of the void-for-vagueness doctrine;
- An updated treatment of homicide in general, with particular attention paid to a new wave of hostility to the felony murder doctrine, including full case treatment of Commonwealth v. Brown, 477 Mass. 805, 81 N.E.3d (2017), abolishing the doctrine by statutory interpretation, and People v. Swanson, 57 Cal.App.5th 604 (Ca. App. 2020), applying S.B. No. 1437, a reform statute that curtailed both felony murder and the natural-and-probable consequences doctrine in homicide prosecutions.
- Full case treatment of Rehaif v. United States, 139 S.Ct. 2191 (2019), a decision exemplifying the Court's approach to imputing culpable mental states to conduct and circumstance elements in criminal statutes;
- Full case treatment of Kahler v. Kansas, 140 S.Ct. 1021 (2020), rejecting a constitutional challenge to the state's elimination of insanity as an affirmative defense, and presenting along the way at thorough history of various versions of the defense;
- State v. Harris, 2017 WL 1505219 (Del. C.P. Apr. 20, 2017), a remarkable report by a judge acquitting the accused of sexual assault charges, illustrating the peculiar difficulties of prosecuting rape cases as well as the mechanics of the trial process.
With respect to criminal procedure, the main development is the Supreme Court's landmark decision in Carpenter v. United States, 138 S.Ct. 2206 (2018). Carpenter held that that federal agents violated the Fourth Amendment by obtaining seven days of location data, from the defendant's service provider, without first obtaining a search warrant. The new edition relies on a recent District Court opinion, United States v. Diggs, 385 F. Supp. 648 (N.D. Ill. 2019), to explain the important changes wrought by Carpenter.
