Criminal Justice Melissa Mcfarlin POL 303 John Stender, J.

Topics What is criminal law? What is a crime? What are the most common law defenses?

Thesis Statement Criminal law can be defined in many ways. If an ordinary person was asked, what criminal law was they would probably have take a minute and think about it. Criminal law as its going to be defined through out this paper is a crime committed against the public by the public. Criminal law brings different rankings of offenses. There are also many classifications of what a crime is, it just depends on who you ask, a crime is a wrong against the society or public interest. When a crime is committed there is a penalty that follows with it .depending on the severity of the case if it will go to court or not, and if so there is a defense law the defendant is capable of using. Throughout this paper, it is going to be described on how all this works together in the justice system.

References: Davenport, Anniken U. Basic Criminal Law: The Constitution, Procedure, and Crimes. Second ed. Upper Saddle River,NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2009. Print This reference is the one that most of the reliable information comes from that my paper is going to be developed of. It contains enough information construct a well though out paper.

Criminal law. (2008). In The Columbia Encyclopedia. Retrieved from: http://www.credorcferena.com/entry/columency/criminal_law This site I found very helpful on gathering information, it explains criminal law, classification of crimes, defining what crimes are and the setting punishment, along with the right to a defense and also the criminal procedure. This information is going to be helpful while I am developing a thesis and my paper.

http:///www.criminallawyergroup.com/criminal-law/what-is-criminal-law-information-ab out-criminal-law.php This reference was helpful to an extent. It has a clear definition of all aspects of the law and explains how the whole criminal justice system works.

http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/insanity+defense This reference I found very helpful in all counts of information. It explains every aspect of the law from head to toe and gives examples of every scenario. I am going to

use this to conclude in my paper about how common law defenses are used.

Memon,R. (2006). Legal Theory and case law defining the insanity defense in English and Welsh law. Journal of Forensic Psychiatry& Psychology, 17(2), 230-252. Doi:10.1080/14789940600554609 This article was very useful it has a lot of good information on the insanity defense in the MNaghten case and many other forms of defense with a case to explain the defense rules and limitations, along with the criminal procedure.

http://www.historians.org/projects/groundtable/crimewave/crimewave1.htm This article I stumbled upon is a very interesting one. It explains what a crime is. How to deal with criminals on all aspects. They teach techniques on how to learn who a criminal is, and explains about the crime waves, fluctuating .