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KCRIM Criminal Law at Kings

The King’s Criminal Law group is led by Professor Andrew Simester and Dr John Stanton-Ife. The aim of the group is to foster research into criminal law, including a variety of theoretical perspectives.

Amongst its programme of activities, KCrim convenes the Michaelmas Hearings, which bring together some of today's leading criminal law thinkers to discuss current legal issues affecting the United Kingdom, Europe, and the rest of the world. Each year, our speakers are expected to offer up for discussion some real problems in the theory and application of the criminal law, broadly understood. In the coming term, we shall welcome speakers from the United States (Doug Husak), Scotland (Antony Duff) and England (Findlay Stark and Bob Sullivan).

Potential attendees of the Michaelmas Hearings should bear in mind that we shall generally commence substantive conversation as quickly as possible, without allowing much by way of presentation from the guest. Reading the paper in advance is, therefore, generally a prerequisite.

Previous sessions included:
2016

Monday 10 October:
Joint Enterprise: RIP?
Findlay Stark, Cambridge
Bob Sullivan, UCL
Andrew Simester, KCL

Friday 25 November:
Ignorance of Law as a Criminal Law Defence
Doug Husak, Rutgers
Antony Duff, Stirling



2017

Wednesday 25 October (jointly with kJuris):
Moral Luck
Andrew Simester, KCL

Friday 17 November:
Consent in Moral, Political, and Legal Perspectives: Some Implications for Sexual Offenses Michelle Dempsey, Villanova

Thursday 30 November:
The Impact of Moral Panics on the Criminal Justice System – Perceived or Normative Legitimacy?
Miriam Gur-Ayre, Hebrew University of Jerusalem



2018
Tuesday 9 October:
Justifications and Numbers
John Stanton-Ife, KCL
Andrew Simester, KCL

Friday 16 November
Duplicative Wrongs (Criminal and Civil)
Findlay Stark, Cambridge

Friday 23 November
The Primacy of Prevention
James Edwards, Oxford

Every Summer, Professor Simester also hosts the Criminal Conversations series, a week-long event in which thinkers about criminal law doctrine are invited, not to present complete papers as such, but to float work-in-progress in an open-ended format.
The KCrim events are by invitation only. Postgraduate students at Kings should indicate their interest by emailing Dr Stanton-Ife or Professor Simester.