Ofer Raban, a tenured professor at the Law School of the University of Oregon in USA visited CASS Institute of Law and gave an academic lecture entitled “The History and Development of Some Difficult Cases in American Criminal Law from the perspective of Sexual Assault” at the Institute on October 17, 2023.

In the lecture, Professor Raban demonstrated the change of the attitude of the Supreme Court of the United States towards the adjudication of difficult criminal cases through the analysis of some of such cases. Firstly, he introduced the relevant provisions of the US law by taking the crime of sexual assault as an example. Secondly, he pointed out that the judgment attitude of the Supreme Court of the United States towards different types of criminal cases is not static. In different historical periods, different states show different value judgments and changes in judicial handling skills. Finally, he analyzed the process of legislation on sexual assault and the reasons for the changes in the legislation, and explained how to identify the subjective elements of the perpetrators in sexual assault cases. 

The lecture was presided over by Professor Xu Hui, Head of the Procedural Law Department of CASS Institute of Law, and attended by more than 50 people, including researchers from CASS Institute of Law and CASS Institute of International Law as well as doctoral candidates and master students from the Law School of the University of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, who exchanged views with Professor Raban after the lecture.