ing the common law were expected to rely upon basic principles of law,
which reflected the societal customs and values of the period. Overtime, the
judiciary developed specialized approaches for dealing with particular
types of issues, and each successive factually similar case was decided in a
similar fashion. These specialized methods for dealing with particular is-
sues formed a body of legal precedent. This meant that judges did not have
to "reinvent the wheel" when cases arose that were factually similar and that
prior decided cases had precedential value in assisting the judges in deter-
mining future cases. Of course, cases maintained precedential value only as
long as societal customs and values supported the application of such prece-
dent to particular issues.

For example, much of the early colonial criminal law focused on regulat-
ing and punishing crimes that offended the "morals" of society. This stan-
dard led to the infamous Salem witch trials, as well as to numerous
prosecutions for "crimes" such as fornication, profanity and failure to at-
tend church. Gradually however, as a result of industrial and economic ex-
pansion, the criminal law began to shift its focus away from the regulation
of morals to the regulation of property and economic relationships. In light
of this new economic emphasis, many of the laws and decisions relating to
crimes against morality were overshadowed and rarely enforced. Nonethe-
less, it is interesting to note that criminal statutes outlawing fornication and
adultery can still be found in many state statutes today, although most are
rarely if ever enforced. Perhaps one explanation for the continued presence
of these statutes is that few state legislators relish the idea of going on the
public record in calling for the repeal of these morality-based statutes.

Another example of the gradual evolution of the common law is the
crime of theft (discussed later). English legal historian and jurist William Blackstone
, in his classic statement of the common law, Commentaries on
the Laws of England, defined larceny as the "felonious taking and carrying
away of the personal goods of another." This definition was adequate as
long as economic relationships were simple. However, as capitalism grew
and as banks and corporations entered the economic picture, it became clear
that Blackstone's definition was far too specific to encompass new forms of
property such as bank notes and stock certificates. Therefore, theft laws had
to be modified to meet the changing demands of economic progress and the
new forms of criminality that accompanied that progress. To a certain ex-
tent, this evolutionary process is still apparent in modern theft statutes. For
example, modern theft statutes were not broad enough to address the enor-
mous growth in the area of computer technology. Specifically, as the defini-
tion of property in many theft statutes did not encompass the theft of

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