Recent Developments in Criminal Law

Abstract

Before considering some of the recent criminal law cases which are significant as indices of the present course of criminal law, let us briefly review some of the major inherent difficulties attending the administration of criminal law. The degree of efficiency that can be attained in enforcing rules governing human conduct is intimately associated with the extent to which such precepts lend themselves to enforcement.' It is virtually inevitable that whenever society burdens the law with an extensive program of regulation of many phases of conduct whose very nature does not permit of simple objective treatment there will follow loud complaints of the breakdown of the traditional enforcing agencies. The problem of enforcing the criminal law is in reality a problem of the intrinsic limitations upon effective legal action. Crime is a relative concept, varying both with the society in which it is prohibited and the time at which it is prohibited.2 To the fact that the evolution of the criminal law lacked scientific guidance we may ascribe the great number of vestigial penal laws, both substantive and adjective, which so frequently mire the enforcing agencies. Often, strict compliance with the technical requirements of criminal procedure stemmed from the endeavor of the courts to ameliorate the excessive severity of the punishments for the old common law crimes. Our modern criminal codes are not unified by a single consistent underlying concept but rather consist of a mixture of principles derived from diverse schools of philosophy. Each generation has accepted the criminal law as it was bequeathed by its fathers, rarely troubling to examine its heritage for the purpose of culling out those portions which were based upon outmoded theories. Each generation has sought to build upon the foundation of the old criminal laws regardless of whether or not the foundation could accommodate the structure. This accounts