Criminal Law
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Description
For most first-year students, criminal law tends to be the one course where they feel most comfortable. At las, they have found a class where the terms are familiar, the issues resonate, and controversies abound! As our national obsession with the celebrated murder case of the People of California v. O. J. Simpson demonstrates, we are mesmerized by matters related to crime. Questions of violence, personal responsibility, and punishment typically evoke strong emotional reactions, forming the basis of opinions that students will hold when they enter the classroom. However, a course in criminal law challenges students to do more. They must begin to examine these volatile issues not as they have across their dinner tables, but by critically analyzing the underlying theories and competing foals of the criminal justice system. Students will learn to develop arguments and anticipate opposing positions. In the process, they will frequently discover nuances that had previously escaped them. More important, as they debate hard questions about the potential range and limitations of the law, they will find that they are starting to “think like a lawyer.”
Source Publication
Looking at Law School: A Student Guide from the Society of American Law Teachers
Source Editors/Authors
Stephen Gillers
Publication Date
1997
Edition
Rev., Exp. 4
Recommended Citation
Taylor-Thompson, Kim A., "Criminal Law" (1997). Faculty Chapters. 1442.
https://gretchen.law.nyu.edu/fac-chapt/1442
