Criminal Law

Written by legal scholars and practitioners, treatises provide current, in-depth analysis of an area of law and include citations to relevant sources, including case law, statutes, regulations, and law journal articles.

Federal criminal laws are codified in Title 18 of the United States Code (U.S.C.).  For guidance on how to search federal statutes, see the Law Library's Federal Statutory Law guide.

State laws governing crimes and punishments are found in an individual state's statutory code. To locate state criminal code sections, consult the index to your state's annotated code and look for relevant terms such as crime, crimes, crimes and offenses, criminal, felony, misdemeanor, punishment, etc. and/or words that describe the subject of the crime, such as homicide, burglary, assault, etc.

For guidance on how to search state statutes, see the Law Library's State Materials guide.

50-state surveys can provide all states' statutes on a given topic.

Title 28, Judicial Administration, of the Code of Federal Regulations includes most regulations relating to criminal law.  For additional guidance on how to search federal regulations, see the Law Library's Federal Regulations guide.

The Library's Case Law guide provides links and information on how to search for cases.