Criminal Law: Cases and Materials (American Casebook) |  | Authors: Cynthia K. Lee, Angela P. Harris
Publisher: West
Category: Book
List Price: $167.00
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Rating:  4 reviews
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 2
Pages: 1082
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 3.8
Dimensions (in): 10 x 7.6 x 1.6
ISBN: 0314199802
Dewey Decimal Number: 345
EAN: 9780314199805
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Product Description
This text, the only criminal law casebook authored by two progressive female law professors of color, provides the reader with both critical race and critical feminist theory perspectives on criminal law. The book focuses on the cultural context of substantive criminal law, integrating issues of race, gender, class, and sexual orientation where relevant
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| Customer Reviews:
 Mr./law student August 30, 2009
Vadim Fesenko (Miami, FL)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
For me this was an assigned book. It is concise and detailed with just enough cases and other articles to make the reader understand the complexities of criminal law and the ever evolving approach to it. The cases are clear and edited enough to remove the always present surplusage while leaving enough of the court's reasoning. I would recommend this book.
 Good casebook, but not for reactionaries December 21, 2007
Juice
4 out of 5 found this review helpful
The reviews here that attack Lee and Harris for being "radical," "leftist," and "feminist" ignore the fact that this casebook includes the same seminal cases as any other decent criminal law book, with the bonus of including several cases and discussions not to be found in most.
Every law class has a group of people who hem and haw and roll their eyes every time the word "race," "class," or "gender" is mentioned. They say things like "if they want to teach that, let them teach a class on it, we need to know what the law really IS." This completely ignores the fact that these authors are trying to recontextualize criminal law to enable students to understand it for what it really is. Instead of showing it as a pristine gem of various threads of common law, they show it to be a conflicted, flawed, at times brilliant, at times horrific, but always ever-evolving area of law.
Would the people complaining about Lee & Harris mind if a casebook included an article by Posner about how crime is basically due to constraints on the market? Probably not -- and yet such a position would actually be far more radical than what's in here.
The fallacy of attacks such as those in some of the reviews here is that they claim that all they're saying is that they want to know what the law really IS, etc. since they're supposed to be learning something practical. The truth is that if you want to be a successful attorney, you need to know everything that may influence your case, your judge, your client, the system, etc. It's ridiculous to think that law somehow exists in a bubble. If you go up to a judge and start spouting falsely-clear legal principles with no real understanding of the historical, social, and theoretical context in which they exist/which they have constructed, then you will not make a good impression and your client will suffer as a result.
I don't know if this is a perfect casebook. But I do encourage professors to give it a chance before dismissing it in the way that some reviewers here have.
 Feminist Critique in the guise of a Criminal Law Casebook November 10, 2005
Macho Man (USA)
3 out of 15 found this review helpful
I wish our teacher used the LaFave or Dressler casebooks who compile cases relevant to the study of criminal law in general. If we had, we would have been able to cover all the crimes in due time. Instead we are stuck with this biased casebook while we waste our time discussing feminist critique of crimes (especially rape). This casebook is inundated with Feminist articles. Frankly, I don't want to waste my time studying this topic. If the feminists really want to change the law, then run for Congress and change the law! Until then do not waste our time studying what the law should be instead of what the law actually is.
 Pure Propaganda September 6, 2007
Andrew (TX)
0 out of 4 found this review helpful
This text is best avoided by anyone who isn't a radical leftist (and I do mean radical!). Every single case and piece of supplementary material in the text is presented from an anti-white racist or radical feminist viewpoint. For example, every single case discussed in the "Constitutional Limitations" section of the text involves blacks who were ostensibly discriminated against. Every single one. Are Lee and Harris trying to give the impression that the only issue/issues involving Constitutional limitations on criminal law involve white mistreatment of blacks? It sure seems that way.
There is no attempt to hide the text's political bias, either. Supplementary materials include numerous attempts to spin the disproportionate amount of crime committed by non-whites by blaming the problem on a "racist" justice system. Most of the time, this text reads more like a liberal apologetic for non-white crime than a textbook/casebook about criminal law.
Do you hate people of European descent? Blame them for all of your failings? Want to learn about how the Anglo-Saxon men who created our legal system (and indeed our entire country) are responsible for all of the problems of black Americans? Then you'll positively love this text.
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