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Casebook Read Credits
Criminal Law
Section 5
1.5 hours

The Significance of Resulting Harm

Sam Kamin,
Dana Lindenberg

We have already seen with homicide that it matters very much if particular harm results from the defendant's conduct: Speeding is a traffic infraction; speeding that causes death is homicide. But why should that be? In this section we use two topics -- causation and attempt -- to investigate the question of why the criminal law places such a high degree of importance on whether or not the defendant's culpable conduct results in tangible harm.

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