AJ 4 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Precedent, Substantive Law, Weregild

• School: Irvine Valley College
• Department: Administration of Justice
• Course: AJ 4
• Professor: Watkins

Document Summary

Criminal law: the bodies of rules that define crimes, set out their punishments, and mandate the procedures for carrying out the criminal justice process. The former is known as civil law and the latter is called criminal law that can generally be divided into 4 categories. Substantive criminal law: bodies of specific rules that declare what conduct is criminal and prescribe the punishment to be imposed for such conduct. Procedural criminal law: the methods that must be followed in obtaining warrants, investigating offenses, effecting lawful arrests, conducting trials, introducing evidence, sentencing convicted offenders, and reviewing cases by appellate courts. Civil law: all law that is not criminal, including tort, contract, personal property, wills, maritime, and commercial law. Public law: the branch of law that deals with the state or government agencies and controls their administrative relationships with individuals, corporations, or other branches of government.