Law of Crime

LAW6028

Syllabus and Module Information

I. Introduction

Welcome to Criminal Law (LAW120 and 3007) and Law of Crime (Law6028)!

This year there will be three different Criminal Law courses running. Please ensure you
know which module you are doing. This is important as this dictates the exam paper you
sit as well as which questions you are asked to answer in the seminars.

LAW120: for first year Law/Language students;

LAW3007: called Criminal Law (Advanced) in official documents: for new second year
students who have not done Criminal Law in their first year. Most students doing a
Criminal Law module this semester will be taking this course.

LAW6028: for MA (Law) students ONLY. This is called law of Crime to distinguish it from
the undergraduate modules.

II. Teaching and Learning Strategies

The course is through lectures (3007 and 120 only), seminars, and electronically through
MOLE

Lectures

In lectures, students will be given a basic exposition of the aims and objectives of the
session; will be given a framework to pursue their learning independently; and will be
encouraged to participate in the session through individual questioning and other
interactive exercises. Lectures are optional for MA (Law) students but the strong
recommendation of the lecturers is that you should attend: you save time (one hour
lecture may be worth 10 hours of independent study, you won’t go off target, and you will
be kept up-to-date.

Seminars

In seminars, students will be expected to display substantive knowledge. They will be

given the opportunity to consolidate, develop, present and apply the knowledge acquired
from large group sessions and independent study. Students may be guided towards
further reading and other related activities.

Seminars last for one hour and you will have 6 x 1 hour seminars (LAW120 and 3007) or
8 x 2 hours for the MA (Law)). In seminars you may be split into groups by your tutor. If
this is the case you must check which group you are in as you will be expected to come
to the seminar prepared to answer a question in your group. If have not contributed to
the group or do not prepare you will be asked to leave the seminar. If you have a
problem with this you must contacted one of the criminal law team as soon as possible.
Seminars will mainly take the form of resolving how you would approach various problem
scenarios in an attempt to find the legal answers. We should emphasise that this course
is not about finding ‘the sole answer’ but about /how/ to go about finding the answer. We
expect you all to be reading the relevant section of the core textbook … but that on its
own is simply not enough if you wish to obtain more than a low 2:2 in the assessments.
You MUST also read a selection of the leading cases in each topic. We suggest you
read the main judgment of at least six cases in full, and also read the headnotes of most
of the other cases referred to, continuing to read the judgment in full if you feel from
reading the headnotes that the case is important or useful. Journal articles are
particularly important and helpful in the Criminal Law/Law of Crime and you should be
searching for these and reading them where you can.

We must stress to you that we do not believe in spoonfeeding. By now you should have
acquired research skills and we expect you to use them. The development of research
and analytical skills is an important part of your degree, and skills that we are often
required to comment on when writing a reference for you supporting your application for
a training contract, further education, or a job.

Throughout the seminars we will be guiding you as to how to prepare a good analysis of
problems that arise in Criminal Law/Law of Crime. We expect you all to come to the
seminar with your ideas of how to approach the questions. During the seminar you may
be working in small groups in which you will present your answer to the class or
presenting your answer on your own. Both formats achieve many aims of the law degree
– research, collaboration, presentation skills – and at the same time allows for a degree
of repetition which will make you more familiar with the subject and its intricacies.

Our role in seminars is to comment, correct and embellish your answers whilst showing
you how to work your way through the problems/essays. Previous students in other
courses have commented that this method is very helpful, and we hope you will feel the
same. The group approach method if used does not mean that you can get by with doing
very little work and rely on others to come up with the answer. We do not like
freeloaders, nor we suspect do you. If you have had a serious problem that has meant
your preparation is not as good for a particular seminar as it should be, then please see
one of the tutors before the beginning of the seminar to explain yourself. You will
probably be allowed to continue to sit in the seminar group …. but this is a ‘one-off’ offer
– do not expect to be able to do this every time.

The only problem with group work, if adopted, is that it is open to abuse by students who
do not ‘pull their weight’. During the seminar we will be asking each group or individual to
present their coordinated answer … however, we will not just be expecting the same
person to answer every time, but we will pick on you all individually and if you can’t
answer, we will be wanting to know why. Equally, if you find that you are the only person
in your group (or one of two or three) who has prepared for the seminar, we want to
know about it.

Please bear in mind that there will be a number of international students and exchange
students who will not be working in their first language. Please be inclusive in your
groups and try to give them the confidence to speak up and play their equal part.
NOTE THAT SEMINARS ARE COMPULSORY – NOT OPTIONAL. IF YOU ARE
UNABLE TO ATTEND THE SEMINAR, YOU SHOULD NOTIFY YOUR TUTOR OF
YOUR ABSENCE IN ADVANCE.

Why group work?

As we have stated there is an emphasis on small group learning during the

seminars. You will learn much from each other as well as from the tutor.

May we suggest the following:

Role of the individual student:
To prepare in advance: It is recognised that you need to have undertaken
sufficient preparation, in appropriate detail, in advance. Comments include:
Prepare thoroughly
Try to understand the work before going into the seminar
Don’t be rushing in at the last minute
Better and earlier preparation
Engage with the material
Be systematic and effective in your reading
Formulate your own opinions and thoughts on issues beforehand
To contribute to discussions: There is a recognition you can only do so
effectively if you have prepared adequately and are willing to share your
understanding. Amongst the suggestions put forward are:
Contribute as much as possible
Contribute openly
Be confident and speak up
Participate more
Talk and ask questions

Role of students to each other:

The importance of both adequate preparation and good contributions are
recognised (see above).
Good teamwork and communication skills were considered important.
Suggestions include:
Share ideas and understanding
Cooperate
Voice your ideas – share your opinions
Don’t be afraid of getting the answers wrong
 Don’t be shy
Be open to the ideas of others
Listen to other points of view
Patience with slower students
Arrive willing to form a team

Asking appropriate questions is also suggested:

Speak out when you don’t understand
Think about the questions you want answered beforehand

Role of the Tutor:

To help and support students with their understanding:
Be prepared and answer all questions
Be understanding of the difficulties students may come across
Explain thoroughly
Aim to answer questions in simple way
Be honest if answers are poor
Be willing to listen and to helpful, be patient

Create a relaxing atmosphere for contribution:

Don’t put people on the spot
Make seminars funny
Encourage quieter students to speak out more
Actively encourage debate
Create a relaxed atmosphere where everyone feels comfortable to express their
views
Involve everyone

MOLE

You will rely heavily upon the MOLE site for Criminal Law/Law of Crime. There, you will
find lecture handouts, past exam papers, a discussion board, and announcements
relevant to the course.

The discussion board will not be monitored by members of staff. The board is for
students to use to communicate with each other and not with members of staff.

Please note that since LAW3007 is relatively new, there are very few previous papers
but papers for LAW349 are to be used as exemplars. There is also only a limited number
of back papers for LAW120 but again LAW349 papers may be used; for LAW6028
please note that while there are papers for LAW6028 available for several years, until
recently the course was a second year one with a somewhat different syllabus: there is
only one past paper for this module at first year level but again LAW349 may be used as
exemplars.

III. Teaching Team

Lectures will be led by Claire McGourlay, Mike Jefferson and Matthew Hall

Seminars will be led by Matthew Hall (m.p.Hall@shef.ac.uk) Mike Jefferson

(m.Jefferson@shef.ac.uk), Nathan Cooper (n.cooper@shef.ac.uk, Ben Douglass
(b.douglass@sheffield.ac.uk) and Claire McGourlay (c.mcgourlay@shef.ac.uk).

IV. Lecture / Seminar Programme

Lecturer Seminar
Week Lecture Topic
1 Introduction
Actus reus (x 3 hours) CM
2 Actus Reus (x 3 hours) CM

3 Mens Rea (x 3 hours CM Seminar 1-Actus

reus/mens rea
Mens Rea/Sexual Offences (x3) CM Seminar 2-Sexual
4 Offences
Murder and manslaughter MH Seminar 3 Murder
5 and manslaughter
(including intention)
6 Murder and manslaughter/ MH Seminar 4
Recklessness Recklessness and
Non Fatal Offences
+++ EASTER VACATION +++

7 Theft (x 2 hours) MJ Seminar 5 Theft 1

Theft (x 2 hours) and burglary MJ Seminar 6 Theft 2

8

Defences CM Seminar 7
9 Defences
Bank Holiday Lectures have been
10 front loaded to take account of this
holiday.
11 Defences and Revision MJ Seminar 8
Defences with
some revision
12 Reading week
CM = provisionally Claire McGourlay; MJ = provisionally Michael Jefferson, MH =
provisionally Matthew Hall

For seminar 5 note that students doing Criminal Law in their first year need to
understand something about trusts to understand the law of theft. Please try and read
up on this area to help you understand these issues. We will post something on MOLE
at a later date.

As stated, non-fatal offences form the coursework and will not be lectured on, and
recklessness will receive only cursory treatment in the lecture series, it is also
forming part of the coursework.

V. Assessment
Assessment is by a 3 hour (plus 15 minutes’ reading time) unseen exam. Students may
take into the exam. room an unannotated and unmarked statute book. For the rubric see
past exam. papers but in brief candidates must attempt three questions out of the eight
set, one of which must be an essay, one of which must be a problem and one of which
may be either an essay or a problem.

PLEASE ENSURE THAT WHEN TOU ATTEND THE EXAM THAT YOU ARE SITTING
THE CORRECT EXAM PAPER! ALL PAPERS ARE DIFFERENT AND ARE SET AT
VARIOUS LEVELS. IF YOU SIT THE WRONG PAPER IT WILL BE TO YOUR
DISADVANTAGE.

VI. Coursework

There is as mentioned above one piece of non-assessed coursework. This MUST be

handed in by Thursday 18th March 2010. Failure to do this will lead to your work not
being marked. Further details are provided on MOLE.

XI. Learning Resources

You are strongly advised to purchase one of the following core text:

Michael Jefferson, Criminal Law, Pearson, 9e, 2009 (plus website attached to book –
see the Pearson website and make sure you are using the 9th edition’s website)

William Wilson, Criminal Law Doctrine and Theory, 3e, Pearson/Longman 2008.

Statute book- Criminal Law Statutes 2009/10 Jonathan Herring Routledge 2009 or any
similar one).

Details of statute books, casebooks and other purchasable material will be provided in
the first lecture.

Blackwells bookshop will be selling the statute book (this is essential) Jefferson
and Wilson (the book not the lecturers) outside the first lecture on Monday 8th
February 2010. Cash and cards both taken.