In criminal law, when is "common law" used, when is the "model penal code" used?

[artek57]

common law = precedent

It's used in every case

The basic routine for researching a case goes like this:

1--define the crime
2--define the specific section of the US code that has been violated
3--research cases indexed by that code for prior interpretations likely to be used

Step 2 is a research of statutory law.
Step 3 is a research of common law.

************
The second answer is wrong.

There's not a single case in any law library in America that references English common law. Courts are restricted to American statutes and American precedent.

[barclay76]

English Common law is what American law is based on.

Like Poop said, if there is no US law, the court falls back to common law as "the way it has always been".

The Model Penal Code is the Justice Department's vision of the standard that State Criminal Codes should adhere to.

It is not binding, however some states have adopted it almost to the letter.

(Check the civil cases, Poop... there are oodles of em.)

[drystan]

I don't think any U.S. jurisdiction still recognizes common law crimes, the criminal law is now almost entirely codified. The common law is now mostly only used as precedent for statutory construction and certain procedural, evidentiary, and doctrinal concepts. The Model Penal Code has not been fully adopted in any jurisdiction either, it is a model code written by a bunch of academic types and some states have based their penal codes on it, but even those deviate from it to some degree.

[mads]

What are you talking about?