Case Talks

Case Talks is an online seminar for the discussion of criminal law cases, bringing together criminal law scholars from the Anglosphere and Germany. I organise it with Johannes Weigel (Göttingen and Max Planck Institute for the Study of Crime, Security and Law).

We discuss one criminal case each session. Our official page is here. You can sign up by emailing Johannes at the link.

Forthcoming sessions:

Rachel Clement Tolley (Cambridge) on R v B(MA) [2013] EWCA Crim 3

• (How) Can mental disorders (eg psychosis, autism) affect whether a defendant has a reasonable belief in consent?
• 2025-09-25

Past sessions:

Findlay Stark (Cambridge) on R v Parker [1977] 1 WLR 600

• What does it mean to close one’s eyes to an obvious risk? Is doing so reckless?
• 2025-07-03

Manuel Cordes (MPI CSL) on BGE 113 IV 58, BGHSt 37, 106 and BGHSt 48, 77

• How does negligent co-perpetration and causation work in group scenarios?
• 2025-06-05

Johannes Weigel (MPI CSL) on BGH 18.11.2020 - 2 StR 246/20

• When are mistakes of law ‘avoidable’?
• 2025-04-03

Svenja Schwartz (MPI CSL) on BGH 22.11.2023 - 2 StR 152/23.

• How does prior failure to self-medicate psychosis affect the availability of the insanity defence?
• 2025-03-20

James Manwaring (Cambridge) on R v Bainbridge [1960] 1 QB 129

• How specifically must an accessory’s mens rea align with the principal’s crime? Which variations are compatible with accessorial liability?
• 2025-03-06