Book Review: Card, Cross and Jones, Criminal Law (12th ed)
| DOI | 10.1177/002201839305700111 |
| Published date | 01 February 1993 |
| Date | 01 February 1993 |
| Subject Matter | Book Review |
BOOK
REVIEWS
Criminal Law (7th ed). By J C
SMITH
and
BRIAN
HOGAN.
London: Butterworths,
Price £25.95 (paperback).
This marvellous book has now reached its seventh edition in just less than 30 years
and it has shown itself to be indispensable to students taking criminal law as part
of their university degree course. But it does not end there. The principles on
which the law is based and the arguments as to criminal liability do not and should
not finish at the door of the Senate House, and there is much within its pages that
is of use to the busy criminal practitioner. Indeed, it would be a good idea for
practitioners to read this book every three or four years in an endeavour to reach
back to their criminal law roots. Modern reference works such as Archbold and
Blackstone will meet his or her day-to-day needs in practice, but much of the
philosophy underlying the principles of the law may be lost in the hurry and scurry
of case preparation.
The
work is divided into two: 'General Principles' covers, inter alia, the theory
of crime and punishment, actus reus, mens rea, negligence, vicarious liability, and
inchoate offences. 'Particular Crimes' goes through the familiar gamut of fatal and
then non-fatal offences against the person, sexual offences, offences of dishonesty
and forgery, as well as the less common matters, such as blasphemy, sedition, and
the like, and emerging crimes such as computer misuse in which regard the
Computer Misuse Act 1990 is fully covered.
The text is attractively set out and there are a range of references, not only to
leading cases, but to learned articles from this country and from abroad. The law
is stated at 1 April 1992, but the authors have managed to include discussion of
the Criminal Justice Act 1991 and the Road Traffic Act 1991 which were not in
force at that date.
Smith and Hogan's Criminal Law, in its latest edition, underpins its reputation
as the pre-eminent text book in this field.
Card, Cross and Jones, Criminal Law (12th ed). By
RICHARD
CARD.
London:
Butterworths. Price £16.96 (paperback).
All law students and many practitioners will welcome a new edition of Card, Cross
and Jones which charts the many developments in the criminal law since the last
edition was published in 1988. Professor Richard Card, Head of the School of Law
at the De Montfort University, Leicester, has brought to the work not only his
own scholarship but renewed freshness and vigour whilst maintaining the felicity
of expression and tautness of writing which has characterised the work from the
very beginning. Paragraphs of text dealing with the principles of the subject matter
are supplemented with copious notes which refer to cases, academic articles and
Law Commission papers including the draft criminal code bill. All these enable
the reader to research the points in the text with appropriate thoroughness.
Since 1988, this branch of the law has not stood still, and the Criminal Justice
Acts 1988-91 are referred to as is the road traffic legislation of 1988 and the Road
Traffic Act 1991.
Other
measures which seem destined to become of growing
importance and to which attention is paid by the author are the Computer Misuse
Act 1990 from which the first appeal cases are starting to emerge, and the Criminal
Procedure (Insanity and Unfitness to Plead) Act 1991 which makes certain new
provisions for the many mentally ill persons who still become swept into the
criminal justice system.
Professor Card has continued to achieve the near impossible: a comprehensive,
yet concise (less than 500 pages), treatise of the criminal law, available at a very
competitive price.
107
To continue reading
Request your trial