Revision and Codification of Penal Law in the United States

I am honored by the invitation to address you and happy to join in. your tribute to the memory of Horace Read. Dean Read was a pioneer in the perception that this is d legislative age, one of the greatest legislative eras of all time. He was concerned that lawyers be equipped to deal effectively with the ever growing corpus of the statutory law and he made valuable contributions to that end. Whether the larger legislative role in the development of law that he depicted and foresaw was a phenomenon that he regarded with approval or regret, I must confess I do not know. But speaking for myself, I do not hesitate to say that I regard it-and I have regarded it for almost halfa century-as essential to maintain a living law.