The American Law Institute’s Model Penal Code and European Criminal Law

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Markus D. Dubber
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Law ◽  
Penal Code ◽  
Model Penal Code ◽  
American Law ◽  
European Criminal Law

Toward a Contemporary Concept of Criminal Justice

1969 ◽  
Vol 4 (4) ◽  
pp. 479-493
Author(s):  
Helen Silving
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Criminal Law ◽  
Canon Law ◽  
The State ◽  
Penal Code ◽  
The Other ◽  
Model Penal Code ◽  
National Socialist ◽  
American Law ◽  
The One

The state of our “criminal law” in 1905 was described by William H. Taft as “a disgrace to our civilization”. This state had not changed much almost half a century later, when Justice Frankfurter quoted Mr. Taft's statement. Several major modern reform projects formulated since 1952 introduced some noteworthy modifications. I have in mind particularly the American Law Institute Model Penal Code, on the one hand, and the German Draft of a Penal Code, both of 1962, on the other. In the former I should like to draw attention to the serious attempt at a systematization of punishment scales, and in the latter to the effort at a systematic structuring of the “guilt principle”. The German Draft incorporated results of various revisions introduced since the collapse of the National Socialist régime, by either statutory or judicial legislation—revisions born out of the growing concern in Germany with “guilt”. Prominent among these revisions, of course, is adoption of the defence of “error of law” of ancient origin, derived from biblical, talmudic and canon law teaching. Nevertheless, these two projects have but touched the surface of the profound problems that are involved in formulating truly modern penal legislation.

UNTYING THE GORDIAN KNOT OF MENS REA REQUIREMENTS FOR ACCOMPLICES

2016 ◽  
Vol 32 (2) ◽  
pp. 161-183
Author(s):  
Heidi M. Hurd ◽  
Michael S. Moore
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Law ◽  
Common Law ◽  
Penal Code ◽  
Mens Rea ◽  
Model Penal Code ◽  
American Law ◽  
General Part ◽  
The Common ◽  
Anglo American ◽  
Responsibility Model

Abstract:This essay undertakes two tasks: first, to describe the differing mens rea requirements for accomplice liability of both Anglo-American common law and the American Law Institute's Model Penal Code; and second, to recommend how the mens rea requirements of both of these two sources of criminal law in America should be amended so as to satisfy the goals of clarity and consistency and so as to more closely conform the criminal law to the requirements of moral blameworthiness. Three "pure models" of the mens rea requirements for complicity are distinguished, based on the three theories of liability conventionally distinguished in the general part of Anglo-American criminal law. One of these, the vicarious responsibility model, is put aside initially because of both its descriptive inaccuracy and its normative undesirability. The analysis proceeds using the other two models: that of the mens rea requirements for principal liability for completed crimes, and that of the mens rea requirements for attempt liability. Both the common law and the Model Penal Code are seen as complicated admixtures of these two models, the common law being too narrow in the scope of its threatened liability and the Model Penal Code being both too broad and too opaque in its demands for accomplice liability. The normative recommendation of the paper is to adopt the model for the mens rea of complicity that treats it as a form of principal liability, recognizing that the overbreadth of liability resulting from adoption of that model would have to be redressed by adopting a "shopkeeper's privilege" as an affirmative defense separate from any mens rea requirement.

scholarly journals Kazne u Francuskom krivicnom zakoniku od 1810. godine

Forum ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 1 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 87-107
Author(s):  
Milica Marinkovic
Keyword(s):  
Detailed Analysis ◽  
Criminal Law ◽  
Original System ◽  
Penal Code ◽  
Penal System ◽  
Practical Application ◽  
Old Regime ◽  
Further Development ◽  
European Criminal Law ◽  
Partial Division

The author in the paper analyzes the penal system of the French Penal Code of 1810 (Code pénal de 1810), bearing in mind the influence this Code and its penal system had on the further development of French and European substantial criminal law. The fact that the Napoleonic Penal Code of 1810, with its later modifications and additions, remained in force for 184 years, speaks in favor of this. In this paper the penal system of the Code of 1810 is exhibited according to the original system of the Code. The tri‐partial division of both criminal acts and penalties was a novelty in the European criminal law. Given the fact that this was a Code promulgated 21 years after the Bourgeois revolution, the author compares the penal system of this Code to the penal system of the first revolutionary Penal code of 1791, but also with penalties that were used in the “Old regime” (Ancien régime). Based on the data published in bills and literature, the author gives a detailed analysis of all penalties contained in the Penal Code of 1810. Thereby, the key criminological problems caused by the practical application of these penalties is pointed out.

The draft code and reliance upon official statements

Legal Studies ◽  
1989 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 177-188 ◽  
Author(s):  
Glanville Williams
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Code ◽  
Penal Code ◽  
Model Penal Code ◽  
Draft Code ◽  
American Law ◽  
The Law ◽  
Political Realities ◽  
Law Commission

Any project to draft a criminal code has to compromise between the desirable and the politically possible. It may be that the draft now produced by the Law Commission, or something like it, is the best that can safely be backed, though the contrast between it and the American Law Institute's Model Penal Code (which also had to take account of political realities, and yet has been adopted in many States) is a painful reflection on our stodginess. It is hard to avoid the impression that the Law Commission have been too cautious in their approach, leaning too much in favour of bare restatement of the existing law and against modifications that experience or reflection show to be necessary.

The Historical Analysis of Criminal Codes

2000 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 433-440 ◽  
Author(s):  
Markus Dirk Dubber
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Criminal Law ◽  
Historical Analysis ◽  
The United States ◽  
Penal Code ◽  
Raw Material ◽  
Historical Study ◽  
Model Penal Code ◽  
The Face ◽  
Anglo American

Students of Anglo-American criminal law, historians included, have traditionally had very little to say about criminal codes. This omission is startling in the face of ongoing efforts to codify criminal law since the late eighteenth century, not only in England and the United States, but also in Canada and India. The only historical study of criminal codification in the United States is a survey article that is, strictly speaking, not about codification at all, but about the great men who made codification possible, in particular the forefathers of Herbert Wechsler, the main drafter of the Model Penal Code. The Model Penal Code itself gave no clues as to its historical antecedents, if any. It is regarded, and portrayed itself, as having invented the wheel by starting from scratch, the raw material of the common law.

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