Criminal Law, Procedure, and Evidence

Constitutional principles are the foundation upon which substantive criminal law, criminal procedure law, and evidence laws rely. The concepts of due process, legality, specificity, notice, equality, and fairness are intrinsic to these three disciplines, and a firm understanding of their implications is necessary for a thorough comprehension of the topic. Criminal Law, Procedure, and Evidence examines the tensions produced by balancing the ideals of individual liberty embodied in the Constitution against society's need to enforce criminal laws as a means of achieving social control, order, and safety.

Relying on his first-hand experience as a law enforcement official and criminal defense attorney, the author presents issues that highlight the difficulties in applying constitutional principles to specific criminal justice situations. Each chapter of the text contains a realistic problem in the form of a fact pattern that focuses on one or more of the classic criminal justice issues to which readers can relate. These problems are presented from both the point of view of citizens caught up in a police investigation and from the perspective of police officers attempting to enforce the law within the framework of constitutional protections.

Before practicing as a criminal defense attorney and teaching at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, Walter P. Signorelli was a member of the New York City Police Department for more than thirty years. He retired as an Inspector in the Detective Division and had been the commanding officer of precincts in Brooklyn and Manhattan, in the Organized Crime Control Bureau, and in the Narcotics Division. He is a graduate of St. John's University School of Law and the Columbia University Police Management Institute. He is the author of The Constable Has Blundered: The Exclusionary Rule, Crime, and Corruption and The Crisis of Police Liability Lawsuits.