Delaware Criminal Code with Commentary

In the mid-20th century, the Delaware criminal law was a collection of unconnected statutes, archaic language, and inconsistent penalties, which relied heavily on common law for the definition of crimes. In the 1960s, Gov. Charles L. Terry, Jr. appointed the Governor's Committee on Revision of the Criminal Law to study the Delaware criminal law and produce a revised criminal code. Eventually, the Committee created a completely new criminal code, which was passed by the General Assembly and signed into law by the Governor on July 6, 1972.

In 1973, the Committee published a report, Delaware Criminal Code with Commentary, which included the text of the new code as well as comments comparing the old and new codes and explaining the new laws. This report is an important source of legislative history and is frequently cited when researching Delaware criminal law. This report is difficult to find in paper, so we have scanned it to make it available to researchers.

Delaware Criminal Code with Commentary