Where is criminal law published?

  • Thread starter Thread starter abhinavc_13
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Most criminal laws in the USA are published in "criminal code" that collects and indexes all of the laws passed by the legislature over the years. Each state has its own "criminal code" or "penal code" or similar. There is also a federal criminal code, found in Title 18 of the US Code.

There are other criminal laws that are "common law" crimes, that may or may not be written in your state. These have developed from hundreds of years of court cases. Some states have criminal code statutes that specifically state that the common law crimes are still offenses, unless they have been pre-empted or replaced by codes.

There are many free online resources for researching statutes, such as findlaw.com, Legal Information Institute, and others. Professionals typically use paid services of Lexis or Westlaw or the like, which have additional details regarding relevant cases, history of the laws, etc.
 
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