Pros And Cons Of The Model Penal Code

The Model Penal Code: Failed Legislation or a Progressive Leap During the early stages of modern civilization, mankind has yet to conquer one salient topic; how does a government systematically and effectively use laws to govern their citizens? Over time, there has been many attempts to create uniform sets of rules to govern a countries citizens. The United States is no different; beginning in 1953 the American Law Institute began drafting a set of uniform codes that every state can adhere to. The MPC (Model Penal Code) was finished in 1962 , and immediately impacted the way criminal procedure and criminal law operated. As of 2016, only thirty-six states have adopted some form of the code which effectively negates the reason why the code

When a lawyer graduates from law school, they must take the BAR exam, which effectively proves weather or not they are ready to implement the skills learned in school into the real world. However, once someone does pass the test, they are legally only allowed to represent someone from within their state. This prevents a new lawyer from handling cases outside of their state, and must be relicensed in order to practice law in a different state. One would assume that this is not a big deal, when in turn it is. They must be licensed in the state that they want to practice law in, therefore if an attorney had a family member out of state, they could not legally represent them in court, which creates a situation of misunderstanding, that an attorney could not practice law in their state because their state laws are drastically different. With that being said, it would be incredibly inefficient to go through the rigorous two-day long exam in order to be able to represent them in court. For this reason, an attorney would be less incentivized to go through the process of licensing, when a member of their family needs legal representation. Be that as it may, the American Bar Association is not able to create a uniform exam, because so many states have different laws and practices that go into the legal profession. With the implementation of a nationwide set

However, there are still some very key components that need to be addressed in order for the code to be used in the most efficient and effective matter. Whether it being a general disconnect between the definitions of crimes or the oversimplification of terms, the Model Penal Code still has quite a few obstacles to overcome before it will be uniformly adopted by all states. However, with today’s modern communications network, getting the greatest legal minds of our generation together would be far easier than when it was back in 1961, and by doing so could make the necessary changes that are needed for the code to become truly