What Does the Criminal Practitioner Know?

Below, Howard notes the correction that was made to the Times piece, as well as Jason Mazzone's apt comments.  Since the criticism now seems to be leveled at criminal law proper, I thought to point interested readers to a short paper of mine that reacts to an excellent and provocative piece by Anders Walker.  A number of the differences between Anders and me are peripheral to the discussion here, but some of what my reply does is to think a little bit about what sorts of abilities the criminal practitioner possesses, based on my own experience as an ADA for a few years before I began to teach.  I certainly do not claim that my experience is typical (I did not practice long or broadly enough to be able to make anything like that claim); it reflects merely one person's thoughts about the quality of what a criminal practitioner knows, and so what it might be useful for him or her to begin to learn in the criminal law course.  I should say also that in part because of Anders's paper (as well as some interesting work by Chad Flanders), I have been including a good deal more New York Penal Law in my course than I at first did.