Class Notes
8/18/03 – Administrative Business, about TWEN, preview of the class, what we will study
8/19/03 – What is a crime? Hart’s four conditions for an effective criminal law, Dershowitz’s Rules of the Justice Game, burden of proof, the Winship doctrine, the meaning of element, a thought experiment
8/22/03 – Owens v. State, “Small things that aren’t so small”, State v. Ragland, jury instructions, jury nullification
8/25/03 – Theories
of punishment, why we punish, distributive justice, utilitarianism,
retributivism,
differences between the theories, The
Queen v. Dudley and Stephens
8/26/03 – Model Penal Code §1.02, People v. Du, United States v. Jackson
8/29/03 – The principle of legality, Commonwealth v. Mochan, the doctrine of lenity, Keeler v. Superior Court
9/2/03 – In re Banks, the “Peeping Tom” statute, the abominable and detestable crime against nature, the crime of ogling
9/5/03 – “Beginning to build the house”, actus reus, the elements of a crime, Martin v. State, punishing thoughts, time framing, voluntary acts, State v. Utter, the Model Penal Code on “acts”, People v. Decina, two forms of omission liabilty
9/8/03 – People v. Beardsley, Barber v. Superior Court, questions to ask about a voluntary act or omission, social harm
9/9/03 – Mens rea, Regina v. Cunningham, People v. Conley, transferred intent (and why it’s stupid), general versus specific intent
9/12/03 – Model Penal Code § 2.02, problems on culpability
9/15/03 – State v. Nations, United States v. Morris, the Model Penal Code approach to culpability (§ 2.02)
9/16/03 – People v. Navarro, mistake of fact analysis, Regina v. Prince and the “moral wrong” doctrine, the “legal wrong” doctrine, People v. Marrero and mistake of law, the Model Penal Code approach to mistake (§ 2.04)
9/19/03 – The Weiss statute, Cheek v. United States, textual analysis of statutes
9/22/03 – Causation: Velazquez v. State, actual cause, proximate cause, Kibbe v. Henderson, coincidental and responsive intervening causes, the intended consequences doctrine
9/23/03 –
Criminal homicide, State v.
Schrader, the Model Penal Code on criminal homicide, Schrader in
9/26/03 – Girouard
v. State, malice, adequate provocation, the reasonable man, Director
of Public Prosecutions v. Camplin
9/29/03 – People v. Casassa, extreme mental or emotional disturbance at common law and in the Model Penal Code, O Pioneers! and some exam advice
9/30/03 – Unjustified risks, Berry v. Superior Court, express and implied malice, the Learned Hand formula in criminal law, “substantial and unjustifiable risk”, State v. Hernandez, some issues of evidence
10/3/03 – A police interrogation, State v. Williams, the felony-murder rule, People v. Fuller
10/13/03 – The “inherently dangerous felony” limitation – People v. Burroughs, note 4A, the “independent felony” or “merger” limitation – People v. Smith, note 2, the writing assignment
10/14/03 – Rape, State v. Alston, social science
10/17/03 – State v. Rusk trial, comparison to past “trials”, the adversarial system and cognitive dissonance, why this wasn’t realistic, the jury process, strategy, judging the victim, the resistance requirement, the common law rule of resistance
10/20/03 –
Estrich again, T.S. Eliot problem, Susan Ager—The Incident, Commonwealth
v. Berkowitz
10/21/03 – State
of New Jersey in the Interest of M.T.S., the
10/24/03 – Rape and mistake of fact, Commonwealth v. Sherry, rape shield laws
10/27/03 – Categories of defenses, self-defense, notes on Peterson, four theories of justification
10/28/03 –
Model Penal Code § 3.04, People v.
Goetz, what is a reasonable belief?
State
v. Wanrow
10/31/03 – State v. Norman, the Model Penal Code formulation of self-defense
11/3/03 – Justification defenses, Nelson v. State, the Model Penal Code on necessity: § 3.02, Model Penal Code commentary, The Queen v. Dudley and Stephens, hypotheticals, pp. 547-548
11/4/03 –
11/7/03 – More on People v. Anderson, Ted Bundy, insanity
11/10/03 – A hypothetical, excuse defenses – a laundry list, new excuses, rotten social background defense, cultural defenses, State v. Kargar
11/14/03 – Inchoate offenses, conspiracy and solicitation, attempt, McQuirter v. State, how much punishment? Objectivism versus subjectivism, People v. Gentry
11/17/03 –
Actus
11/18/03 – Defenses to attempt, People v. Thousand, Jaffe, factual impossibility versus legal impossibility
11/21/03 – State v. Hoselton, common law versus the Model Penal Code, People v. Lauria
12/1/03 – State v. Foster, State v. Linscott, natural and probable consequences doctrine
12/2/03 –
Presence, State v. Vaillancourt, Wilcox v. Jeffery, State v.
Helmenstein, People v.
12/4/03 – Bailey v. Commonwealth, State v.
12/8/03 – People v. McCoy, conspiracy liability, Pinkerton v. United States, Kotteakos v. United States
12/9/03 – What Dressler looks for on tests, the exam instructions, the exam itself, exam taking do’s and don’ts, outlining on the exam, writing an exam question, multi-party cases, multi-crime cases