Law : Criminal Procedure

The Criminal Justice Act 2003 re-wrote the hearsay evidence rule for the purpose of criminal proceedings, enacting the recommendations of the Law Commission together with some proposals from the Auld Review. Since the new provisions came into force a body of case-law has interpreted them and, in particular, given guidance as to how the new 'inclusionary discretion'. should be exercised. Following the style of his earlier book about the new law on bad character evidence, the central part of Professor Spencer's book on hearsay evidence consists of section-by-section commentary on the relevant provisions of the Act. The commentary is preceded by chapters on the history of the hearsay rule, and the requirements of Article 6(3)(d) of the European Convention on Human Rights. It is followed by an appendix containing the text of the statutory provisions and a selection of the leading cases. more...

Price: $30.00

In recent years, it has become very obvious that the boundaries of legal theory have moved far beyond those which have tended to define the more narrowly construed ‘province’ of jurisprudence, as John Austin described it a century and a half ago. As we will see at various times in this book, classical modernist jurisprudence, that which has enjoyed a considerable dominion in university law schools for decades, even centuries, is only a part of legal theory properly understood, only one theory amongst many. To an extent, this dominion was founded on the assumption that Austinian jurisprudence is somehow ‘our’ jurisprudence. To teach classical English jurisprudence is to engage in an overtly nationalistic act and, for far too many teachers and students, for far too long, this has seemed to be justification enough. This book is part of a growing determination, shared by critical legal theorists, that such a constrained and constraining approach must now be abandoned. Classical jurisprudence is as inadequate as it is debilitating. Quite simply, legal theory is not a science. At least, it is not just a science. Indeed, there is no such thing as legal theory; merely legal theories. Law is not any one particular thing, and cannot be understood, analysed, described or whatever, in terms of one particular discipline or methodology. more...

Price: $34.00

This book is a study of the social transformation of criminal justice, its institutions, its method of case disposition and the source of its legitimacy. Focused upon the apprehension, investigation and adjudication of indicted cases in New York City’s main trial tribunal in the nineteenth century - the Court of General Sessions - it traces the historical underpinnings of a lawyering culture which, in the first half of the nineteenth century, celebrated trial by jury as the fairest and most reliable method of case disposition and then at the middle of the century dramatically gave birth to plea bargaining, which thereafter became the dominant method of case disposition in the United States. The book demonstrates that the nature of criminal prosecutions in everyday indicted cases was transformed, from disputes between private parties resolved through a public determination of the facts and law to a private determination of the issues between the state and the individual, marked by greater police involvement in the processing of defendants and public prosecutorial discretion. As this occurred, the structural purpose of criminal courts changed - from individual to aggregate justice - as did the method and manner of their dispositions - from trials to guilty pleas. Contemporaneously, a new criminology emerged, with its origins in European jurisprudence, which was to transform the way in which crime was viewed as a social and political problem. The book, therefore, sheds light on the relationship of the method of case disposition to the means of securing social control of an underclass, in the context of the legitimation of a new social order in which the local state sought to define groups of people as well as actual offending in criminogenic terms. 'At a moment when France is poised to adopt plea bargaining, McConville and Mirsky offer the best historical account of its emergence in mid-nineteenth century America, based upon exhaustive analysis of archival data. Their more...

Price: $84.00

Punishment is a phenomenon which occurs in many contexts. Discussions of punishment assume punishment is criminal punishment carried out by the State. This book contains an account of punishment which overcomes the difficulties of competing accounts and t more...

Price: $110.00

Getting tough on crime has been one of the favorite rallying cries of American politicians in the last two decades, and "getting tough" on repeat offenders has been particularly popular. "Three strikes and you're out" laws, which effectively impose a 25-years-to-life sentence at the moment of a third felony conviction, have been passed in 26 states. California's version of the "three strikes" law, enacted in 1994, was broader and more severe than measures considered or passed in any other state. Punishment and Democracy is the first examination of the actual impact this law has had. Franklin Zimring, Sam Kamin, and Gordon Hawkins look at the origins of the law in California, compare it to other crackdown laws, and analyze the data collected on crime rates in Los Angeles, San Diego, and San Francisco in the year before and the two years after the law went into effect. They show that the "three strikes" law was a significant development in criminal justice policy making, not only at the state level, but also at the national level. They conclude with an examination of the trend toward populist initiatives driving penal policy. The importance of the subject and the stature of the authors make this book required reading for policy analysts, criminal justice scholars, elected officials, and indeed any American seeking to know more about "get-tough" criminal sentencing.  more...

Price: $40.00