Criminal Procedure: Examples and Explanations (Examples & Explanations)

Rating:
Summary: Not a helpful study aid
Review: This book was a real disappointment compared to others in the examples and explanations series. Most of the examples were simply cases that if you had studied at all you would already know. If you didn't bother to do the reading for your class, then maybe it would be helpful.

Rating:
Summary: Really Good Text. Great for Exams.
Review: This is a book and series that I would recommend to any law student. One of the problems I have found about law school is there is a lot of reading without very much learning. The essence of it is that the case method doesn't work and the practical skills you lack are blaring on the first day you show up at your job.

The nice thing about this book is that it acknowledges that the cases don't do you much good unless you understand how they affect the client or his circumstances. This book is filled with examples and answers for each type of case you study. This proves extremely, extremely, valuable when its time for the exam and you are looking at fact patters.

In addition, I have hated previous guides because they don't recognize that we have gone to class and we need a new way to look at the issue. This book gives you short introduction, so your not reading twenty pages before actually trying to learn something.

The only weakness with this book is that Crim Pro is almost exclusively constitutional law and not statutory. As a result, the brevity of text I just praised makes it a bit difficult to see how cases at times might work together. This becomes a little more apparent when you switch from issues with the Fourth Amendment to issues with the Fifth. While the two work together much of the time, I wanted more of a line in the sand.

This book is great though if you are using it with a casebook. You will be very glad you bought it. I would also highly recommend this book to those of you who freeze up in exams. The examples in this book will allow you see the fact patterns before and save you time under pressure.