The real significance of crime is in its being a breach of faith
with the community of mankind. Joseph Conrad, Lord Jim
Welcome to the Criminal Law Web Site. The material on our pages is intended as a resource for anyone with an interest in the law of crimes, defenses, and punishment. It also serves as a supplemental resource for students taking the first-year introductory law school course in criminal law.
Coverage includes general principles and elements of criminal liability: culpable mental states, act and omission, causation, and attendant circumstances. Attention is also given to inchoate crimes - solicitation, conspiracy, and attempt - and to theories of complicity.
You'll also find treatment of the basic defenses: self-defense, defense of another, defense of habitation, use of force to prevent crime, use of force to arrest, use of force in discipline of children, duress, necessity, and insanity.
The site is maintained and written as a public service by
Balancing theory with practice, CCJA maintains related sites dealing with the subjects of criminal trial advocacy , criminal pretrial and trial practice, and jury argument in criminal cases.
These copyrighted pages may not be reprinted or republished in whole or in part, electronically or in print, without express written permission.
However, individual users are permitted to print one copy of any page(s) for personal use.
CCJA is an independent entity. This is not an official site of any educational institution.
No one other than the author is responsible for the contents of this site or for any links from this site.
Written inquiries can be addressed to: Center for Criminal Justice Advocacy, P.O. Box 22642, Houston, TX 77227-2642.
This site is written and maintained for CCJA by Ray Moses and was last updated on: May 12, 2008.
This site is best viewed with an Internet Explorer browser. It is not graphically compatible with Mozilla or Netscape.
