Any consensus on the BEST SUPPLEMENT FOR CRIM LAW? Forum

[Newb2law]

I heard the E&E crim law supplement is not too good... but couldn't find any consensus on what some of the best ones might be? I only have crim law for one semester so I think it will be pretty brutal :L

[Nova]

dressler

[banjo]

I heard the E&E crim law supplement is not too good... but couldn't find any consensus on what some of the best ones might be? I only have crim law for one semester so I think it will be pretty brutal :L

The Crim E&E admittedly has a number of weaknesses. For starters, the examples and explanations at the end provide very little practice in applying law to fact. The authors also devote way too much space to archaic common law principles and not enough space to the Model Penal Code or statutory interpretation. This is a particularly bizarre oversight because Crim is THE statutory interpretation course in your 1L year, and a LOT of professors emphasize the MPC. That said, I think it's still worth reading through the chapters. They discuss a few issues that showed up on my exam.

Beyond that, I would take a look at Dressler (didn't use it much) and good outlines from 2Ls and 3Ls. It's really important to figure out early on if your professor is going to emphasize the MPC, the common law as codified in state statutes, or general common law principles (i.e. teaching Crim like Property or Torts--I don't think any professors do this). If you jump into a supplement before figuring this out, you'll waste a ton of time.

[randomstudent]

If your teacher uses the Dressler casebook, I would use the Dressler supplement. I've also heard good things about the LaFave hornbook.