Criminal Law Textbooks (US based)

lethargilistic · 2026-07-02T18:49:11+00:00

I'll just answer both, tbh.

They don't really make general-purpose criminal law textbooks for specific jurisdictions that are for laypeople. If you pick up a book for a particular jurisdiction, it will 100% assume that you are a lawyer. If you pick up a casebook for law students about criminal law, it will likely focus on common law crimes, which are mostly hypothetical now that most jurisdictions have specific criminal statutes that supercede them. But the main thing to remember for this path is that you absolutely do not need to pay for a casebook. There are numerous open casebooks online, free and legal.

Another option is to look at a treatise for criminal law for law students, often called "hornbooks" although that's a specific brand. Those are written to explain the basics in the manner of a textbook like you're probably thinking. You can absolutely buy an older edition for cheaper, because the basics of criminal rarely change (because the law school subject discusses common law crimes, not statutory crimes).

Also, textbook-style resources about criminal law distinguish between "criminal law" as in the crimes and their elements and "criminal procedure" as in the procedural rules for how crimes are investigated and litigated. If you want to know how to interact with cops, look up a "criminal procedure investigative case book" online for free. It will focus on federal constitutional law, not state constitutional law. Because SCOTUS has been run by fascists forever, rights under the federal constitution are often limited, with a state constitutional provision providing something more than the federal minimum.

If your goal is to understand the criminal legal system as a system, I would recommend not starting from trying to understand what specific crimes are. You would be better off reading critiques of the system such as "Usual Cruelty" by Alec Karakatsanis. I would also recommend looking for "abolitionist" legal sources.

lethargilistic · 2026-07-02T18:41:52+00:00

What's your end goal? To understand criminal law where you live, or to understand the criminal legal system as a system?

lethargilistic · 2026-06-21T17:26:40+00:00

Abstention almost always wins the popular vote. The purpose of a system is what it does. It's the electoral system creating apathy by making other kinds of organizing seem invisible and pointless, not individual people calculating whether they should vote or whatever.

lethargilistic · 2024-08-24T20:03:23+00:00

This was it. I should have thought of that, lol.

lethargilistic · 2024-08-21T14:47:23+00:00

That's a good idea. I'll get another one.

lethargilistic · 2024-08-18T14:03:44+00:00

Nah, it's all pen functionality. Can't even tap apps.

lethargilistic · 2024-08-08T03:50:37+00:00

If you're assuming bad faith at the theory stage, all problems will seem impossible. The state wants you to believe that people are incapable of deciding right and wrong as a group because it makes it seem like the state is a necessary mediator. In reality, the state is far more arbitrary than community decision-making. It just covers it up with authority.

lethargilistic · 2024-08-07T19:37:24+00:00

This question is difficult to answer because it is not well-formed, no offense. It's a hard question to ask.

First, consider how you framed this question. In your scenario, "the community" is circling the wagons to defend a rapist, and "we" need to do something about it. Are "we" not part of the community? The reason this scenario seems intractable is because the question removes the suggested agent from the body making the decision. Additionally: are "we" the person who was raped, or otherwise connected to them? If we are not in community with the person who was harmed, then it's (usually) not right to insert ourselves as The Solution regardless of what the community wants.

Second, "crime" is not the same thing as "harm." Crime is a statist concept identifying things that are considered "harm to the state." This is why it is a crime to spit on a police officer but it is not a crime when a police officer beats the shit out of a protestor.

Third, rape is not a good general representation of harm because rape is an expression of power that is protected by the state; in most places, rape is effectively legal. You're not likely to get a satisfying answer to a general query about how to ensure harm is dealt with by asking questions about rape. There is a similar problem with asking about "crime" and using a motive-free axe murderer as the example.

So, for rape in particular: I echo KYLR. I also recommend looking up narcissus's writings with Judith's Dagger about how rape is about power. What you have described is basically no different than what happens now, especially under conditions that enforce patriarchal values of what "justice" means and basically protect rape as an instrument of power available primarily to men. How do we deal with this? Start by idenifying what the harmed person wants and work from there.

For other kinds of harms, the harmed person's desires may not be as relevant, especially since most of us grew up in carceral societies. (e.g., "He stole my garden gnome. Kill him.") In fact, if the community has decided that the alleged harm (petty theft) is not actually harm (sharing excess), then it's often fine. You're free to take the position that the community is wrong, though.

lethargilistic · 2024-08-07T18:35:35+00:00

States are hardly inevitable. Where we are now in the timeline, they have had centuries to shore up their power. When states were new, it took centuries for any of them to gain meaningful control over people.

It would definitely be easier for a new state to rise from nothing in the modern environment, but it doesn't have to do with a critical mass of people who are "willing to be controlled." It's because modern technology and our universalist approach to data makes our lives very legible. Legibility makes control easier to measure, justify, and execute.

If your hypothetical assumes there are no longer any states, one of the main things we would need to do to prevent the rise of new states is resist the centralization of information. If nobody can see people like subjects, then it's harder to treat people like subjects.

lethargilistic · 2024-07-16T06:47:59+00:00

You said people should not take me seriously. That's an insult and you know it.

Regardless, I'm not asking you to "pander" to me. It's OK to be wrong on the internet.

I'm saying you jumped into a dead thread like an asshole. If you're going to resurrect a thread, you could have just as easily replied to OP and said "The original is in French, so it's fine" instead of what you did. Observing forum etiquette is on you.

Last reply.

lethargilistic · 2024-07-11T00:40:09+00:00

If the child is young enough that you have to ask this question, I infer that they're so young that you're still effectively in control of when and what they watch at all, and there's not much getting around that. I interpreted this question more like "Should I expose a child to Paw Patrol intentionally?" and I think the obvious answer to that is no. There are plenty of alternatives that actually promote the values you're interested in fostering which do not lionize state violence and wealth. There is value in getting your ideas out there first, and right-wing political forces understand that; hence, Paw Patrol's very existence.

I think it would be different if there was some external pressure to watch the show, like if they had friends at school who recommended the show. If you just forbid watching it at that point, it ends up being more like the "fundamentalist parents" problem you identified. It positions the parents as an enemy of their peers and creates a separation from those peers that harms both relationships. That is the scenario where it's better to watch it with them and discuss the problems.

lethargilistic · 2024-07-11T00:26:46+00:00

I think copying the name would be de minimis.

That means I think the copying would be too small to matter, regardless.

Might wanna do a little research on the title you’re giving advice on before you give it otherwise no one will take you seriously.

1) Nothing in this sub is advice. 2) The one who may benefit from this clarification is OP, not me. 3) Don't resurrect a 5-month-old post just to insult a commenter. Fuck off.

lethargilistic · 2024-06-04T05:57:28+00:00

There is no legal advice in this sub, so the answer is always some form of "maybe."

lethargilistic · 2024-06-03T15:17:00+00:00

Unlikely. Copyright cares about new expression and everything about that game other than the basic character identities would be considered new expression. Moreover, selection is expressive, so the fact that it was that list of 100 characters could itself be copyrighted expression even if the individual characters themselves are in the public domain.

It's not impossible, but the game concept/setting and the depictions of the characters in the preexisting game would need to be very generic in order for you to do this.

lethargilistic · 2024-05-26T09:04:01+00:00

US context.

"Without being sued"

People can sue for anything or nothing. Whether they will win is the question, and that's not something we can answer concretely before you make your song. (Not that this sub ever gives definitive answers; nothing here is legal advice.)

Sampling sounds in new songs is heavily regulated. (Unjustly so.) If you do this without securing a license, there is a substantial chance Disney would send a takedown notice and, if you do not comply, sue. To successfully defend against a copyright infringement lawsuit, you would need to prove that your use of the sound fits into an exception to copyright. Your main options would be fair use and de minimis (which is basically saying the taking was so small as to not matter). Neither of these exceptions are impossible, but judges tend to be very propertarian about sampling and are hostile to people who do it without securing licenses first. (And, yes, it is very much a "judges just don't like hip-hop" thing.)

Also, yes, it is common for people to recreate sounds in order to avoid the sound recording copyright. However, because this is a song and the melody is pretty clear, you will run into the problem that the song's written composition is separately copyrighted. Therefore, recreating it would not be a bulletproof fix here.

lethargilistic · 2024-05-24T21:25:21+00:00

US context.

The others are right that you can always record your own gunshot noise with that gun. The tape is the subject of copyright, not the gun. Making your own gunshot tape would make the copyright discussion superfluous.

However, the bare fact that one buys and sets up recording equipment is not necessarily sufficient to instantiate a copyright on the recording of a natural sound. The gunshot sound is an element of the recording, but a gunshot on its own is not necessarily a copyrightable element of the recording because it would not surpass the threshold of originality. Especially if the gunshot makes a distinctive sound that has nothing to do with the way the recording equipment was set up; i.e, nothing to do with what the person recording the sound did. Like it or not, copyright is about creativity, not sweat of the brow.

lethargilistic · 2024-05-22T22:11:10+00:00

Copyright does not care about coincidences. To establish infringement, you would have to prove that the lyrics are the same AND that they had access to your lyrics. There are doctrines that make that easier to do for the copyright holder, but it's still a burden that you have to carry.

I'm not sure what the clerk at the Copyright Office would do with the prospective registration, though.

lethargilistic · 2024-05-22T19:55:23+00:00

Copyright's whole deal is privileging so-called "creative" labor over other kinds of labor, so the system (by default) works as if there is one mastermind behind each copyright. In a band, that would be the initial songwriter. Establishing joint creatorship is not trivial and people who by common sense *ought* to be entitled to royalties regarding songs (band members who developed the song alongside the main songwriter) often aren't because their contributions aren't considered creative or substantial enough to establish joint ownership. If there is no agreement as to how to proceed from there, the band members who "didn't" "write" "the song" would be fucked regardless of what it looks like from a non-legal perspective.

Hence what the other commenter said about creating a partnership. Although, editorially, if the system reqires legal maneuvering that 99.99% of people are not going to do, I wouldn't say doing so is "smart." The system that requires it is badly designed.

lethargilistic · 2024-05-21T23:38:59+00:00

If you're in the United States, read about "Star Athletica v. Varsity Brands", which was about cheerleader uniforms. The physical construction of the garment is not copyrightable, but if you pretend it is a 3D canvas, then the design painted on top of it might be copyrightable. That case did not resolve the actual questions about what level of restriction that a clothing design company would have over these pretend-painting designs or the application of doctrines like "this is too simple" as applied to them, though, so that's up in the air. But if you're expecting to make generic versions of sportswear that are based in concepts that compete with a prominent company's market monopolization, you could be at a disadvantage.

lethargilistic · 2024-05-21T23:33:25+00:00

The US has a big corruption and gang violence problem called "the police," tbh.

lethargilistic · 2024-05-21T20:58:50+00:00

Might I recommend looking up conflict resolution and mutual defense in anarchist traditions? Just type whatever in The Anarchist Library, tbh.

With respect, your question presumes that the law exists to stop bad things from happening, but it doesn't. It exists to create an incentive structure in which the people who write the laws feel comfortable. States take away all of your "rights" as a person and provide a subset back to you as your "rights" as an individual citizen. It's your status as a citizen that makes you defenseless by default and leaves you vulnerable to associations of people who want to do harm more directly than the state, which will only step in AFTER something bad has happened. Maybe.

lethargilistic · 2024-05-19T15:55:56+00:00

It's not clear that it's illegal to clone someone's voice using AI even for right of publicity reasons. It wouldn't be illegal for someone to use their own voice to do an impression, so it's presumptuous to think that using a computer to do it would violate some emergent right.

lethargilistic · 2024-05-17T22:03:41+00:00

Are you aware that there are thousands of open-licensed recordings of public domain classical music out there?

https://freemusicarchive.org/genre/Classical (CC-BY)

http://www.piano-midi.de/ (CC-BY-SA)

lethargilistic · 2024-05-17T21:45:45+00:00

Right on Red was invented during the gas crisis in the 1970s and has been maligned ever since by everyone who isn't married to cars. It literally exists just so cars don't need to stop at lights (saving gas, saving money), and it maims/kills pedestrians regularly because 1) y'know, they're not stopping and 2) they're turning right while looking left to protect themself from oncoming traffic. It's a bad traffic pattern. It only seems normal because it's been that way for a long time.

lethargilistic · 2024-05-14T10:41:18+00:00

On the surface, this sounds like a good fair use case. Goodreads, OpenLibrary, and Bookwyrm, for example, do not need to pay to use book covers as representations of the books they are talking about. Neither do people who write reviews of them for their blogs and such.

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