Suchergebnisse

This book aims to assist students in their study of criminal law, as a complement to the standard textbooks. It provides illustrations of answers to typical examination and course assessment questions.

This study deals with the law of criminal complicity in both its commonlaw dimensions and as modified by legislation in England, in the Australianjurisdictions (i.e ., the Australian States and in the Commonwealth CrimesAct,19H), and in New Zealand.In the criminal law "complicity" denotes partnership in crime. As such,what might be called the doctrine of criminal complicity consists in thatcorpus of principle which governs the joint implication of each of two or morepersons in a given crime. A person my become particeps criminis in one oftwo ways,i.e., by physically perpetrating this crime or by instigating,encouraging the perpetrator to do this. The first offender is usually calleda principal in the crime , and the latter of them an accessory, or secondaryparty in its commission.For the reasons noted at the outset of Chapter One, the major stress inthis study is upon the statement and evaluation of the law relating tocriminal participation as an accessory. Nonetheless, it will of course befrequently necessary to consider the position of the principal in some detailin analysing the law of complicity.This analysis was motivated ay two ambitions, both of them traditional.The first of them was to state the law as it presently stands. This was feltto be justified, in particular, given that prior to this one (which waspublished in an earlier, and somewhat different form by the Law Book Co. Ltd.of Sydney, in July of last year), no monograph-length study had been undertakenof this topic in any of the common law jurisdictions.The seoond objective, one obviously dependent upon the fulfilment of thefirst, was to evaluate the effectiveness of this branch of the law and todetermine whether or not it is in need of legislative reform in each of thesubject jurisdictions, and if so, then in what terms. I have concluded, (1) that the law should continue to recognise a specifically derivative form of accessorial liability (derivative, in the sense that the person who instigates, encourages or assists the principal offender to commit a crime is made liable for this crime,rather than for an independent offence of an ancillary character); and (2) that the law of complicity - and in particular, that part of it dealing with accessorial liability - is susceptible to reform at a number of levels, in each of the subject jurisdictions. I have sought to take account of the law as it stood in the subject jurisdictions in the last months of 1980.

There has been no lack of attention paid to the intractable problems surrounding the law of attempt. Interest in them has been revived in England by the publication of the Law Commission's Working Paper on Inchoate Offences' and by the decision of the House of Lords in R. v. Smith. As these are difficulties common to all common law jurisdictions, Canadian lawyers may be interested to learn of these recent developments. It is proposed to concentrate here on two main issues: first, what conduct constitutes an attempt and secondly, the question of impossibility. Both are discussed in the working paper; Smith deals only with impossibility. Before considering these, however, it may be useful for Canadian lawyers to have some information as to the nature of the Law Commission and the way it operates. The Commission, a full-time statutory body created in 1965 to keep English law under continuous review, is similar to the Law Reform Commission of Canada. It is examining, inter alia, the general principles of the criminal law with a view to their codification. To this end it has set up a working party consisting of Law Commissioners, members of the Criminal Law Revision Committee, representatives of the Home Office and practising lawyers to prepare working papers 6. These papers are widely circulated for comment and criticism. They do not represent the Commission's final view, nor do they necessarily have its approval. Reactions to each paper are considered and the Commission itself prepares a formal report embodying its own recommendations, including a draft bill, which is presented to the Lord Chancellor, laid before Parliament and published.

This article aims to give a succinct review of notable criminal law and procedure cases decided by the Supreme Court of Virginia and the Court of Appeals of Virginia during the past year. Instead of covering every ruling or rationale in these cases, the article focuses on the "take-away" of the holdings with the most precedential value. The article also summarizes noteworthy changes to criminal law and procedure enacted by the 2017 Virginia General Assembly.