This book explores the role of mens rea, broadly defined as a factor in jury assessments of guilt and innocence from the early thirteenth through the fourteenth century - the first two centuries of the English criminal trial jury. Drawing upon evidence from the plea rolls, but also relying heavily upon non-legal textual sources such as popular literature and guides for confessors, Elizabeth Papp Kamali argues that issues of mind were central to jurors' determinations of whether a particular defendant should be convicted, pardoned, or acquitted outright. Demonstrating that the word 'felony' itself connoted a guilty state of mind, she explores the interplay between social conceptions of guilt and innocence and jury behavior. Furthermore, she reveals a medieval understanding of felony that involved, in its paradigmatic form, three essential elements: an act that was reasoned, was willed in a way not constrained by necessity, and was evil or wicked in its essence.

This book explores the role of mens rea, broadly defined as a factor in jury assessments of guilt and innocence from the early thirteenth through the fourteenth century - the first two centuries of the English criminal trial jury. Drawing upon evidence from the plea rolls, but also relying heavily upon non-legal textual sources such as popular literature and guides for confessors, Elizabeth Papp Kamali argues that issues of mind were central to jurors' determinations of whether a particular defendant should be convicted, pardoned, or acquitted outright. Demonstrating that the word 'felony' itself connoted a guilty state of mind, she explores the interplay between social conceptions of guilt and innocence and jury behavior. Furthermore, she reveals a medieval understanding of felony that involved, in its paradigmatic form, three essential elements: an act that was reasoned, was willed in a way not constrained by necessity, and was evil or wicked in its essence.

The leader in its field and now celebrating the 50th anniversary of its first publication, Leading Constitutional Cases on Criminal Justice is updated annually and includes all significant cases decided in the preceding Term of the Court. In her second year as co-editor, Professor Elizabeth Papp Kamali continues to embrace the editorial approach developed by the late Lloyd Weinreb over an impressive five decades as sole editor: cases are edited generously and presented in a simple, straightforward format, for use in courses on constitutional law and criminal justice. For the 2023 edition, citations that were unavailable for the previous edition have been supplied, small corrections have been made, and one case—Carpenter v. United States—has been expanded from a footnote to a full case in light of its frequent coverage in Criminal Procedure classes. The 2023 edition will be published in August and will be available for fall classes.