Criminal Procedure: The Constitution and the Police

I'm at a loss to understand the reviewers who downgrade this book! It's a terrific way of reviewing the essential points of Criminal Procedure FOR THOSE WHO HAVE TAKEN THE CORRESPONDING COURSE AND PAID ATTENTION! If you haven't taken such a course as a preliminary to using this kind of study aid, or haven't paid attention, you'll be frustrated, maybe direct your frustration at the book (rather than yourself), and won't get nearly as much from it. The E & E series, and its standard Q & A hypothetical format, really works for me--I've benefited from every one I've used, and found it interesting (even fun) while doing so--and agree with other reviewers that the Civ Pro book in particular is great. This one is very good, and I'd advise anyone who is concerned about the nattering nabobs of negativism to spend 10 minutes in the bookstore aisle, or some time viewing sample pages online, before you buy. I don't think you'll be disappointed.

The E & E series can be a little uneven. (The Civil Procedure book is better than most Civ Pro casebooks for actually learning Civ Pro; the Criminal Law book has some outright errors.) This one's better than average--not a substitute for doing your regular reading, but good for exam review. My only complaint is that many of the "examples" are real cases, so they don't test you much if you already did your other reading.

This supplement is a must. It will save you time and energy. Bloom and Brodin give clean definitions for 4th amendment, 5th, and 6th. A friend of mine who passed the July 05 CA Bar (on the first attempt), used this book as her sole preparation for criminal procedure essay section. The checklist located in the appendix will ensure that you will not miss any issues.

I just used this book to help me study for my CrimPro exam. I thought it was very, very helpful, but only because I had read my casebook and attended class all semester. Unlike Glannon's CivPro E & E (which is a MUST-BUY for any 1L), this book would not have been valuable if I had opened it during the semester; it was only valuable before my exam as a review. It does not provide insight into why the Supreme Court decided certain things; it simply gives us the rules the Court spat out with a miniscule amount of justification, if any. Your casebook and professor would likely discuss the reasons why the Court decided the way it did and why the concurring or dissenting justices reasoned the way they did. Thus this book does not give you a complete view of Criminal Procedure. But that is not what we are supposed to expect from study aids and supplements such as this. For what this book is supposed to be, a supplement/complement to the work you've already done, it is excellent. So make sure if you buy this that you are buying it for the right reasons. If you need a book explaining CrimPro in detail, then you should probably read your casebook. I do have to say, however, that the hypotheticals are excellent and give you a good feel for what kinds of essays you might encounter on your exam. They allow you to walk through your analysis, exactly how your professor would expect you to, from start to finish.

This is a book and series that I would recommend to any law student. One of the problems I have found about law school is there is a lot of reading without very much learning. The essence of it is that the case method doesn't work and the practical skills you lack are blaring on the first day you show up at your job. The nice thing about this book is that it acknowledges that the cases don't do you much good unless you understand how they affect the client or his circumstances. This book is filled with examples and answers for each type of case you study. This proves extremely, extremely, valuable when its time for the exam and you are looking at fact patters. In addition, I have hated previous guides because they don't recognize that we have gone to class and we need a new way to look at the issue. This book gives you short introduction, so your not reading twenty pages before actually trying to learn something. The only weakness with this book is that Crim Pro is almost exclusively constitutional law and not statutory. As a result, the brevity of text I just praised makes it a bit difficult to see how cases at times might work together. This becomes a little more apparent when you switch from issues with the Fourth Amendment to issues with the Fifth. While the two work together much of the time, I wanted more of a line in the sand. This book is great though if you are using it with a casebook. You will be very glad you bought it. I would also highly recommend this book to those of you who freeze up in exams. The examples in this book will allow you see the fact patterns before and save you time under pressure.