Outline the development of criminal law The criminal law used in U.S. jurisdictions traces its origin to the English system. At first the law of precedent was used to decide conflicts on a...

Outline the development of criminal law The criminal law used in U.S. jurisdictions traces its origin to the English system. At first the law of precedent was used to decide conflicts on a case-by-case basis during the middle ages.J udges began to use these written decisions as a basis for their decision making, and eventually a fixed body of legal rules and principles was established. If a new rule was successfully applied in a number of different cases, it would become a precedent. These precedents would then be commonly applied in all similar cases—hence the term common law. In the U.S. legal system, lawmakers have codified common-law crimes into state and federal penal codes.