Black Letter on Criminal Law covers the subject of Criminal Law with attention to the issues most often covered in most professors? Criminal Law classes. It is an excellent companion to Dressler's well-respected and popular casebook, Cases and Materials on Criminal Law (now in its third edition), also published by West, but will work seamlessly with all the other major criminal law casebooks. The general part of the criminal law'the elements of offenses, defenses to crimes, inchoate conduct, and complicity'are covered in doctrinal and theoretical depth, with separate attention to both the common law and Model Penal Code. The major crimes (murder, manslaughter, rape and related sexual offenses, and the theft crimes) are also fully developed. Black Letter on Criminal Law is also designed with features that will be especially useful for first-year students. At the beginning and often within each Part of the Black Letter, Professor Dressler conducts ?Conversations with Students? in which he talks to student-readers in an informal way, much as a professor might do at the beginning of a class, to better prepare students for what follows. Second, near the beginning of the Black Letter, Professor Dressler brings his personal experiences as a student and his nearly thirty years in law teaching and examination-grading to bear on examination-taking, by clearly and, at times humorously, discussing the ?Do's and Don'ts in Essay Examination-Taking.' Of course, as with all Black Letters, he provides examination and study questions'multiple choice, short answer, and essay'with accompanying answers.