Criminal Law was my favorite class as a first-year law student at Northwestern UniversityLaw School in 1958. I’ve loved it ever since, a love that has only grown from teaching it atleast once a year at the University of Minnesota since 1971. I hope my love of the subjectcomes through in Criminal Law, which I’ve just finished for the tenth time. It’s a greatsource of satisfaction that my modest innovation to the study of criminal law—the textcasebook—has endured and flourished. Criminal Law, the text-casebook, brings togetherthe description, analysis, and critique of general principles with excerpts of cases editedfor nonlawyers.Like its predecessors, Criminal Law, Tenth Edition, stresses both the general principles that apply to all of criminal law and the specific elements of particular crimesthat prosecutors have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt. Learning the principles ofcriminal law isn’t just a good mental exercise, although it does stimulate students to usetheir minds. Understanding the general principles is an indispensable prerequisite forunderstanding the elements of specific crimes. The general principles have lasted for centuries. The definitions of the elements of specific crimes, on the other hand, differ fromstate to state and over time because they have to meet the varied and changing needs ofnew times and different places.That the principles have stood the test of time testifies to their strength as a framework for explaining the elements of crimes defined in the fifty states and in the U.S.criminal codes. But there’s more to their importance than durability; knowledge of theprinciples is also practical. The general principles are the bases both of the elements thatprosecutors have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt to convict defendants and of thedefenses that justify or excuse the guilt of defendants.So, Criminal Law, Tenth Edition, rests on a solid foundation. But it can’t stand still,any more than the subject of criminal law can remain frozen in time. The more I teachand write about criminal law, the more I learn and rethink what I’ve already learned; themore “good” cases I find that I didn’t know were there; and the more I’m able to includecases that weren’t decided and reported when the previous edition went to press.Of course, it’s my obligation to incorporate into the Tenth Edition these now-decidedand reported cases, and this new learning, rethinking, and discovery. But obligationdoesn’t describe the pleasure that preparing now ten editions of Criminal Law brings me.Finding cases that illustrate a principle in terms students can understand while at thesame time stimulating them to think critically about subjects worth thinking about isthe most exciting part of teaching and writing and why I take such care in revising thisbook, edition after edition.