Law School Will Expand Criminal Law Coverage

The Law School will offer four new courses and seminars in criminal law next year as part of an attempt to "develop a greater sense of responsibility towards criminal justice among law-years," A. James Casner, associate dean of the Law School, said yesterday.

The new third-year course and the three new seminars are being introduced as a result of a 1960 recommendation by the Committee on Legal Education. It suggested that there be an increased emphasis on Criminal Law, Casner explained. He said the recommendation reflected a feeling held by the Faculty for some time that the field was not receiving sufficient emphasis.

Develop Responsibility

"It is felt at the Law School," Casner said, "that lawyers should be more concerned with the administration of criminal justice." "The general feeling," he continued, "is that the bar itself hasn't fulfilled its responsibility in this field. We hope to develop a sense of responsibility among students which they will carry into practice later on."

As a result of the Committee's report, the required first year course in Criminal Law was expanded from a term to a full year two years ago. Next year the School will offer a new third-year course in the administration of criminal justice, taught by Livingston Hall, Roscoe Pound Professor of Law.

The School will also introduce seminars in "Constitutional Problems in Criminal Procedure," taught by John W. Camisar, visiting profesor of Law from the University of Minnesota; "Evidence Problems of Criminal Law," taught by John H. Mansfield '51, professor of Law; and "Psychiatry, Psychoanalysis, and the Law," taught by Alan M. Dershowits, assistant professor of Law, who is now law clerk for Supreme Court Justice Arthur J. Goldberg.

Casner said that the Law School may expand the program further if it secures additional faculty members in the field.