Model Penal Code FOREWORD - Internet Archive

1 Model Penal Code FOREWORD Model Penal Code > FOREWORD FOREWORD The Model Penal Code of the American Law Institute, completed in 1962, played an important part in the widespread revision and codification of the substantive criminal law of the United States that has been taking place in the last twenty years. New codes were enacted in Illinois effective in 1962; Minnesota and New Mexico in 1963; New York in 1967; Georgia in 1969; Kansas in 1970; Connecticut in 1971; Colorado and Oregon in 1972; Delaware, Hawaii, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania and Utah in 1973; Montana, Ohio and Texas in 1974; Florida, Kentucky, North Dakota and Virginia in 1975; Arkansas, Maine and Washington in 1976; South Dakota and Indiana in 1977; Arizona and Iowa in 1978; Missouri, Nebraska and New Jersey in 1979; Alabama and Alaska in 1980; and Wyoming in 1983.

2 It is fair to say that these thirty-four enactments were all influenced in some part by the positions taken in the Model Code, though the extent to which particular formulations or approaches of the Model were adopted or adapted varied extensively from state to state. Georgia, Kansas, Minnesota, New Mexico and Virginia, for example, were content with much less ambitious efforts in their revisions than Delaware, Hawaii, Kentucky, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Oregon and Utah. In each case, however, the legislative process made a major effort to appraise the content of the Penal law by a contemporary reasoned judgment--the prohibitions it lays down, the excuses it admits, the sanctions it employs, and the range of the authority that it distributes and confers. To stimulate that process and assist its execution was the purpose of the Institute in undertaking preparation of the Model Code and of the Rockefeller Foundation in providing indispensable financial aid.

3 The process may not be over yet. Draft codes prepared in jurisdictions where enactment failed, notably California, Massachusetts, Michigan, Oklahoma, Tennessee and Vermont, may still be revived. There is a pending bill in West Virginia and work is under way in Rhode Island and South Carolina. Congress, moreover, has been working more than a decade on the drafting of an integrated code of our federal criminal law, building on the 1971 report of the National Commission on Reform of Federal Criminal Laws. There may well be further motion on that project. The original publication of the Model Code consisted only of the thirteen Tentative Drafts, containing different portions of the text and accompanying Comments, that were considered by the Institute from 1953 to 1960; an initial Final Draft, containing revised text on responsibility, sentencing and correction, considered in 1961; and the Proposed Official Draft of the entire Code (without Comments) approved and promulgated in 1962.

4 There was a strong demand for this material and it was frequently reprinted. A further and final publication was originally contemplated when the Comments, prepared annually in the course of the previous decade, had been suitably updated. It was postponed, however, in favor of a more ambitious undertaking, a revision and expansion of the commentaries to explore and reflect the far-reaching legislative and judicial response to the Code. That response was plainly imminent by 1962, though its magnitude did not at once become apparent. By 1966, however, the Revised Penal Law had been enacted in New York and twenty-two state projects elsewhere were beginning or were under way. A decade later, when twenty-four of the new codes had been enacted and legislation was in prospect in some other states, the time for undertaking final publication was believed to be at hand.

5 A grant from the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration made the project possible and Professor R. Kent Greenawalt of Columbia University Law School was appointed Chief Reporter. Three volumes, containing Part II of the Model Code, Definition of Specific Crimes, with revised Comments drafted by Professor Peter W. Low of the University of Virginia Law School as Reporter and Professor John Calvin Jeffries, Page 2 of 192 Model Penal Code FOREWORD Jr., also of Virginia, as Associate Reporter, were published in 1980 and were very well received. Three more volumes, containing Part I of the Code, General Provisions, with revised Comments drafted by Professor Greenawalt, Professor Low and Professor Malvina Halberstam (Article 1), with the assistance of Professor Sanford Fox (Articles 6 and 7), are in the printer's hands, with publication contemplated in the spring of 1985.

6 These general formulations present a much more extensive treatment of pervasive problems of the Penal law than had been developed heretofore in our legislative tradition or even in the European Codes. Their hospitable reception in much of the legislative and judicial work of recent years represents an important achievement of the Model Code. In the course of the revision of the commentaries, it became evident that a final, official publication of the complete text of the Model Penal Code would be of value. This volume is designed to serve that purpose. The proposed statutory formulations are accompanied by brief explanatory notes and references to the volume and page of the revised Commentaries (or, with respect to Parts III and IV of the Code, the Tentative Drafts) where detailed exposition will be found.

7 The Explanatory Notes were prepared by Professor Greenawalt and his associates in the course of their revision of the Comments. Unlike the statutory text, which had the Institute's approval after a decade of consideration by the Council and Annual Meetings of the members, the notes and commentaries are the work of the Reporters. May 30, 1984 HERBERT WECHSLER Director The American Law Institute Model Penal Code Copyright 2017, American Law Institute End of Document Model Penal Code Model Penal Code > PART I. GENERAL PROVISIONS > ARTICLE 1. PRELIMINARY Title and Effective Date. (1) This Act is called the Penal and Correctional Code and may be cited as It shall become effective on --. (2) Except as provided in Subsections (3) and (4) of this Section, the Code does not apply to offenses committed prior to its effective date and prosecutions for such offenses shall be governed by the prior law, which is continued in effect for that purpose, as if this Code were not in force.

8 For the purposes of this Section, an offense was committed prior to the effective date of the Code if any of the elements of the offense occurred prior thereto. (3) In any case pending on or after the effective date of the Code, involving an offense committed prior to such date: (a) procedural provisions of the Code shall govern, insofar as they are justly applicable and their application does not introduce confusion or delay; (b) provisions of the Code according a defense or mitigation shall apply, with the consent of the defendant; (c) the Court, with the consent of the defendant, may impose sentence under the provisions of the Code applicable to the offense and the offender. (4) Provisions of the Code governing the treatment and the release or discharge of prisoners, probationers and parolees shall apply to persons under sentence for offenses committed prior to the effective date of the Code, except that the minimum or maximum period of their detention or supervision shall in no case be increased.

9 Annotations Commentary Explanatory Note Section sets forth the title of the Code and calls for a legislative specification of its effective date. It also addresses the problem, inevitably posed by the enactment of a new code, whether it has any application to offenses committed or to cases pending prior to its effective date. Though such application is excluded generally, as the ex post facto prohibition requires, room is perceived for the retroactive application of merely procedural provisions and, with the consent of the defendant, of ameliorative or mitigative provisions. By the same token the Code sentencing provisions may be applied with the consent of the defendant and the correctional provisions are applied to persons under sentence so long as they do not increase the period of detention or supervision.

10 Insofar as the Code does not apply to offenses committed prior to its effective date, the prior law is continued in effect as if the Code were not in force. For detailed Comment, see MPC Part I Commentaries, vol. 1, at 2. Model Penal Code Page 4 of 192 Model Penal Code Copyright 2017, American Law Institute End of Document Model Penal Code Model Penal Code > PART I. GENERAL PROVISIONS > ARTICLE 1. PRELIMINARY Purposes; Principles of Construction. (1) The general purposes of the provisions governing the definition of offenses are: (a) to forbid and prevent conduct that unjustifiably and inexcusably inflicts or threatens substantial harm to individual or public interests; (b) to subject to public control persons whose conduct indicates that they are disposed to commit crimes; (c) to safeguard conduct that is without fault from condemnation as criminal; (d) to give fair warning of the nature of the conduct declared to constitute an offense; (e) to differentiate on reasonable grounds between serious and minor offenses.