Codifying General Principles of Criminal Law: Rules of Conduct and Principles of Adjudication

• NCJ Number: 122048
• Author(s): P H Robinson
• Date Published: 1989
• Length: 9 pages
• Publication Format: Document
• Publication Type: Issue Overview
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America
• Note: Paper presented to the Conference on Codification of Criminal Law, Washington, D.C., January 22, 1990. Paper taken from manuscript entitled "Codes of Conduce and Codes of Justice.

Annotation

Questions pertaining to whether general principles of criminal law should be codified and, if so, how they should be codified are examined.

Abstract

The conclusions drawn in this article are that the general principles of criminal law should be codified, but that the reasons for codification are different for different general principles. General principles can serve either of two different functions. The first is stating the general public's rules of lawful conduct. The second is to articulate for decisionmakers in the adjudication process those principles by which they assess the nature of the violation and the amount of liability to be imposed. The drafting strategies and the codification forms for general principles ought to be different for different kinds of general principles, depending upon which of the two functions is served. Rational for codification, drafting strategies for rules of conduct, and drafting principles of adjudication are also discussed.