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Loyola University ChicagoSchool of Law

CRIMINAL LAW SYLLABUSJohn Bronsteen

Introduction

Welcome to Criminal Law! We’re going to have a lot of fun this semester.

Criminal law is different from some other areas of law in that it relies mainly on statutes1 rather than court cases. That’s one of the reasons we won’t be using a casebook. Casebooks teach you how to read cases, which is a very important skill; but it’s a skill you’re developing in most of your other courses. It’s just as important for you to learn how to read statutes, and the perfect place to do that is a statute-based subject like criminal law.

Most criminal law is state law, and each state has its own set of criminal laws. We can’t study all 50 states, so we’re going to study something called the Model Penal Code (MPC). The MPC was drafted in the early 1960s by a committee of experts who wanted to make a model set of criminal laws that each state could use. No state uses all of it word-for-word, but most states (including Illinois) do use it, with modifications, as the primary basis of their criminal law. Virtually all first-year Criminal Law courses teach the MPC.

We’ll read the parts of the MPC that I’ve excerpted in the Course Packet, which you can find on our course’s website on Sakai. The Course Packet is only four pages, but it covers a lot because statutes are much shorter than cases. So you’ll be learning the standard material even though there’s not much reading.

To help you understand the MPC, I’ve summarized it in a document called “Summary of the law,” and I’ve also explained it in several videos. In addition, I’ve created a “Flow chart” document and other materials to help you. And if you ever have any questions, just ask me.

The best way to understand criminal statutes is to apply them to fact situations. That’s what judges and juries do when they decide cases, and it’s also what lawyers do when they make arguments. So I’ll give you lots of practice in applying the MPC to facts. You’ll take many multiple-choice quizzes and submit many written assignments, and although none of them will count toward your final grade (see below for details),2 they’ll help you develop the precise skills that are tested on the final exam. The questions will always be fact patterns that go something like this: “Jack drives 10 miles over the speed limit and crashes into Jill, who dies. What crime, if any, has Jack committed?” You’ll answer those questions by applying the MPC — the parts that are in the four-page Course Packet — to those facts. The final exam will ask the same sorts of questions and expect the same sorts of answers.

1 A statute is a law made by a legislature (like the Senate and House of Representatives).2 When deciding who receives the “Cali” award for the #1 student in the course, though, I reserve the right to consider work done throughout the semester. This may be particularly necessary if more than one student writes a perfect exam.

As soon as you turn in quizzes or writing assignments on our course’s website, you’ll immediately be able to see the correct answers on the website and compare them to your answers. Sometimes the quizzes will also have explanations that tell you why certain answers are right or wrong. And each time you submit a writing assignment, you’ll immediately be able to see a model answer and will also soon receive a grade from one of our course’s tutors. The grades won’t count toward your final grade at all, but they’ll help give you an idea of how you’re doing.

Now we come to something that will sound bizarre. The writing assignments aren’t normal writing assignments: instead, almost all of the writing has already been done for you in the “Answer details” document and the templates that you can find on our course’s website. For the most part, you’ll be copying from those documents word-for-word, letter-for-letter, and punctuation-mark-for-punctuation-mark. I wrote them, and I’m telling you to copy them for the purposes of this course, so it’s not plagiarism: you’re writing these assignments for yourselves, the tutors, and me, and all of us understand that you’re not claiming that the words are your own. As you’ll see when you do the assignments, you’ll still have to make decisions about which templates or which parts of the Answer details document to copy for each assignment and sometimes for each paragraph or sentence within an assignment. Those decisions will be based on the specifics of your fact pattern and how the law applies to those specific facts.

Each decision has a clear correct answer under the laws excerpted in the Course Packet and the bright-line rules we’ll be using. By the time you do each writing assignment, you will have learned how to get those answers right by reading the “Summary of the law” document, watching the video lectures, and especially using the “Answer details” document and templates. Since there’s always a correct answer, you can see how you did by comparing your answer to the model answer, which will be made available on the website as soon as you turn in the assignment. You should always perform a word processing operation known as “Compare Documents” that compares your answer to the model answer to see if you made any errors. There’s a handout on the website that describes how to do this.

Why do I teach this way? Shouldn’t your time be spent thinking about the law rather than mindlessly copying down someone else’s words? Actually, I do it this way precisely so that your time is spent thinking about the law. It takes a lot less time to copy words than to choose your own from scratch, and that means you’ll be free to focus on the substantive decisions that need to be made, such as choosing which laws to apply to your facts. By making those substantive decisions again and again, in every writing assignment and quiz question, you’ll be practicing how to analyze criminal law. Pretty soon, you will have mastered it.

I realize that you’ll also be expending some serious effort on avoiding typographical errors, and this too is by design. You’d be surprised how highly the legal profession values that sort of meticulousness. During the semester, I may tell you some stories about how much it can matter to write without errors. At times during the semester, it might seem like a grind to pay such close attention to tiny details, and I’m sorry to impose such a potentially unenjoyable task on you. But please trust me that the grind serves a crucial purpose: it will make you more meticulous and detail-oriented, and those skills are essential to being a good lawyer.

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When you do the writing assignments, it will be tempting to use your word processor to “paste” text from the templates into your answers. But that would be a big mistake. Your grade is based on the final exam, and the exam software will prevent you from pasting from the templates or any other course materials. Instead, you’ll have to copy manually. And as you’ll see, it’s hard to copy manually without making errors. The students who practice that throughout the semester will do much better at it on the exam. In the past, students who have told me they pasted during the semester did much worse on the exam than students who did the assignments by copying manually.

In addition, when you do the writing assignments by copying manually from the “Answer details” document and the templates, you should definitely print out the documents you’re copying from and rely exclusively on the paper versions rather than the electronic versions. The reason, again, is that the exam software won’t let you see the electronic versions during the exam. And it will be easier to do well on the exam if you’ve spent the semester practicing exactly what you’ll be doing during the exam: copying from paper versions rather than electronic ones.

Everything I’ve just been discussing was about the writing assignments, but what about the quizzes? When you take the multiple-choice quizzes, the most effective document to use is the “Flow chart.”3 It’s a series of simple questions that, when you answer them, lead you through any fact pattern to the correct answer. And you’ll be able to answer those questions just by looking at the fact pattern in each quiz question. By doing this again and again throughout the semester, you’ll get used to applying criminal law to fact situations. Basically, I’ve broken down the process of analyzing issues in criminal law into the questions on the Flow chart. By going through that chart each time you answer a quiz question, accurate analysis will become second nature to you.

The four pages of the Course Packet cover the main topics that are typically studied in first-year Criminal Law. Still, there are many other topics, and we’ll cover a bunch of them in class discussions.

That brings us to the class meetings. You’ll be able to learn the law from the Course Packet, the Summary of the law, the Flow chart, the Answer details document, and the video lectures. And you’ll test your knowledge of the law via the quizzes and assignments. That frees up class time to do something else. Although I may spend some time going over quizzes and assignments and explaining the law in case there’s any confusion, we’ll spend most of our time discussing how you’d approach criminal cases from the perspective of a prosecutor and a defense lawyer: what decisions you’d make and why. We’ll also talk about some of the big issues at the heart of the criminal law — issues that may also apply more generally to all areas of the law — such as why we punish criminals, how the law affects behavior, and how the law can most effectively serve justice and improve the quality of human life.

Required texts3 Actually, the best way to do each quiz question is to try to figure out the answer on your own at first, then input your answer without yet submitting the quiz, and then go through the Flow chart to check whether your answer needs to be changed before you submit the quiz.

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Course handouts, which are available on our course’s website on Sakai

Assessments of student learning

1. Final examination

Your grade is based 100% on the final exam.4 The exam lasts three hours and is graded anonymously. There will be four questions, and all will be fact patterns that are very much like the writing assignments you’ll have submitted throughout the semester. The exam will be open book, which means that you are permitted to consult any written material5 other than exam answers being written by other students. You must take the final exam on a computer: handwritten answers will not be accepted.

You will have a total of 2 hours and 45 minutes to do the first three questions, and you can spread that time among those three questions however you choose. For the fourth question, you will have only 15 minutes. The fourth question will not count toward your grade at all unless it is necessary to break ties.

I’ll grade your exam by comparing your answers to the model answers I’ve written to the exam questions. When you do the writing assignments during the semester, you’ll see that you can write answers that are letter-for-letter identical to my model answers by carefully using the “Answer details” document and the templates. The same is true for the final exam.

And just as you’ll perform a “Compare Documents” procedure to catch any differences between each writing assignment you submit and the corresponding model answer, I’ll grade your exam by performing a “Compare Documents” procedure to catch any differences between your answer and the model answer I’ve written for the exam questions. (If necessary, I may also double-check the answers manually, of course.) My goal is for all of you to know the substantive law so well, and to be able to apply it to the facts so well, that you all get everything right substantively. If that happens, then your grade will come down to the number of writing errors you make — typos, incorrect citations, incorrect quotations of law or facts, etc. I’ll simply count up the number of errors like that, and the fewer errors you’ve made relative to your classmates, the better your grade will be. (Every deviation of any kind from my model answers will be counted as an error. See the “Style requirements” handout for details.)

You might say that your grade should depend on your knowledge of the law, not on your ability to write without errors. My answer is as follows. First, your grade does depend on your knowledge of the law. If anyone makes a substantive error on the exam, that will of course count against their grade more than any stylistic error. Stylistic errors become the main basis of your 4 This assumes that none of the factors in part 2 below (such as missing class or failing to hand in assignments on time) come into play.5 This is subject to whatever limitations may be imposed by law school or university administrators. For example, it is possible that you will be prohibited from using the internet or notes on your laptop during the exam. Please consult the law school’s administrators or review their laptop exam rules for guidance.

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grade only if neither you nor most of your classmates make any substantive errors. And if that happens, it’s a great thing! I want to teach the material in a way that enables all of you to know the substance perfectly and apply it perfectly. Second, incentivizing you to eliminate writing errors is one of my goals in this course because, as mentioned above, those errors are essential for lawyers to avoid. By making them a potentially decisive part of your grade, I’m giving you a reason to become meticulous and detail-oriented throughout the semester. You’ll get lots of practice at that from the writing assignments, and you’ll be able to track your progress throughout the semester via the “Compare Documents” procedure and via your tutors’ grades. Third and finally, nothing could be more transparent or predictable than this basis for grading. You’ll know from the start exactly what your grade depends on, and you’ll be able to hone that skill over the course of the term. Anyone can avoid these seemingly “little” errors if he or she tries hard enough, but it isn’t easy, and the effort will make you a much better lawyer.

On the exam, you’ll need to copy from the “Answer details” document and the templates, and you’ll also need to use the “Flow chart,” the Course Packet, and other documents such as “Style requirements.” But the exam software won’t let you use electronic versions of any of the course materials. So it is essential for you to PRINT OUT ALL THE COURSE MATERIALS AND BRING THEM TO THE FINAL EXAM.

Indeed, you need to print out all the course materials NOW at the beginning of the semester so you can get used to using the printed copies — not electronic copies — to do the writing assignments. If you do the writing assignments by copying from electronic versions of the materials — even if you don’t copy and paste from them — you won’t be getting used to copying from the printed materials that you’ll have to use during the exam, and believe me, that will hurt you on the exam. You need to start practicing right away to do it exactly the way you’ll be doing it on the exam.

Please note that when doing the writing assignments or taking the final exam, you should always copy answers from the Answer details and the templates. The templates have numbers such as “Self-defense #1.” Do not copy from the model answers to assignments, which have letters such as “Self-defense A.”

Please also note that when you answer questions on all quizzes, assignments, and the final exam, you should always say that something is “no crime” if it is no crime that is included in the Course Packet (namely, homicide or attempted homicide). In some cases, the act in question may indeed be some other crime that is not in the Course Packet, but we use the phrase “no crime” in this course as a stylized shorthand that really just means “neither homicide nor attempted homicide.”

It is unlikely that any question on the final exam will be able to be copied from one template alone. However, such a question might appear on the midterm exam or on practice exams that I make available.

For additional guidance and requirements about how to write your answers on the final exam, it is essential to read the separate handout titled “Style requirements for assignments and exams,” which is available on this course’s Sakai website. (But you don’t have to read the whole thing right now. It’ll be assigned in parts for early class meetings.)

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2. Possible other factors

Although I hope and believe this won’t happen to any of you, I need to point out here that I reserve the right to decrease your final course grade for the following reasons: lateness in completing (or insufficient effort on) assignments or quizzes; missing classes6; or bad work in class, which could include inattention or disruptive behavior.

As you know, assignments in other courses such as Legal Writing are not permissible reasons for failing to meet this course’s requirements. When one of the lapses listed above coincides with an assignment deadline in Legal Writing or another course, it will be especially difficult to convince me of the legitimacy of the reason for the lapse.

All of the above refers to single instances of falling short of a requirement. If anyone regularly misses assignment or quiz deadlines, or regularly gives insufficient effort on assignments or quizzes, or regularly misses class meetings, etc., then he or she cannot receive a passing grade in this course.

Please note that if you miss a deadline for an assignment or quiz, then you must still complete and submit the assignment or quiz and email it to me and to your tutor . Again, please remember to copy your tutor on the email.

As you would probably have guessed, discussing an assignment or quiz with another student or with anyone else — or viewing another student’s work or the model answer — before submitting your own answer is strictly prohibited and would be grounds for disciplinary action. Besides, it would be crazy because the grades on the assignments and quizzes don’t count toward your final grade at all, so you’d get no benefit whatsoever from such cheating and would just deprive yourself of the chance to hone your skills for the final exam.

Access to students

My office hours are immediately after each class meeting. Please just approach me at the front of the classroom, or else you can email me in advance to set up a meeting. My email address is [email protected].

Educational goals, objectives, and student learning outcomes

6 If you must miss a class meeting for an unavoidable reason such as an illness or a family emergency, then please let me know as soon as possible. If you miss one class meeting, I tend to be more understanding than if you miss more than one. (For the Weekend J.D. program, though, missing even one class meeting is a major issue because we meet on so few days.)

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In this course, you will learn many of the basic elements of criminal law, including the levels of criminal fault, the elements of intentional and unintentional homicide, the nature and significance of an attempted crime, and the justification of self-defense.

You will also learn how to read statutes very carefully and to apply them to fact situations. You will hone your skill at doing this in writing via repeated practice on assignments throughout the semester. The final exam will test this skill that you have developed, as well as the knowledge of criminal law that you have acquired.

I think that using templates is the most effective way for you to develop rapidly the skills of good legal writing and analysis. Repeating the same process in a relatively uniform manner makes it easier to learn, and the process involves critical thinking due to the differences between the templates and the assignments.

A major goal of this course is to instill and reward meticulousness. Extreme attention to detail is a hallmark of high-quality legal practice, so it will be a focus throughout the semester. My hope is that all students will write with many fewer errors after having taken this course than they did before they took the course.

Teaching philosophy

Research indicates that students tend to learn better through active and applied methods than through passive reading and listening. The assignments, quizzes, and in-class work in this course are aimed at facilitating active learning.

Grade review policy

Over the years, many experiences have taught me that there is no pedagogical value in post-semester meetings to discuss exams. Moreover, due in part to our school’s stringent policy in this respect, I have never once changed a grade in all my years of teaching. Therefore, I respectfully request that you please not contact me in regard to your grade or exam unless you are certain that there is a necessary reason for doing so.

Code of Conduct

Like all courses, this one is governed by the Loyola University Chicago School of Law Code of Conduct: http://luc.edu/law/media/law/fyi/pdfs/Code_of_Conduct.pdf.

Tutors’ role, and reporting crimes

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http://luc.edu/law/media/law/fyi/pdfs/Code_of_Conduct.pdf

Please note that tutors are not employees or instructors, and so they should be relied on solely as peers who are in a position to assist other students with course materials. Any concerns, including matters related to disability accommodations, safety in the classroom, unethical conduct, academic dishonesty, etc. should be brought to the attention of the professor.

Loyola is committed to education, training, and services that encourage healthy, safe, and respectful relationships. Loyola goes beyond compliance with federal laws against gender-based violence, and it aspires to provide a survivor-friendly environment that is rooted in its traditions of justice and respect for others. If you observe a crime, please call Chicago Police at 911 or Loyola Campus Safety at 773-508-6039. Please report all incidents of gender-based misconduct including dating violence, sexual assault, harassment, and stalking via the EthicsLine Reporting Hotline website or by calling 855.603.6988, which is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Notifications submitted via this reporting hotline will be handled as promptly and discreetly as possible, with facts made available only to those who need to investigate and resolve the matter.

Homework

The homework for each class meeting is listed below on this syllabus. Typically, there are many different types of homework assigned for a given class meeting, such as reading, watching videos, taking quizzes, and doing writing assignments. Always do these things in the order they’re listed on the syllabus. I put them in order for a reason: some of the later stuff won’t make sense without the earlier stuff, and I designed the ordering to help you learn the material as quickly and effectively as possible.

Each time you submit a writing assignment, always compare your answer to the model answer before you do the next writing assignment. Never go straight from one writing assignment to the next before you’ve done a “Compare documents” via your word processing program. To learn how to do a “Compare documents,” see the document labeled “Assignment logistics and comparing documents” on our course’s Sakai website.

Assignments

A. Timing of assignment and quiz due dates

Each assignment and quiz is due by 8:30 p.m. on the Wednesday night BEFORE the class meeting for which it is assigned and must be turned in via the appropriate dropbox on the Sakai site.

B. Model answers

Whenever you submit your answer to a writing assignment, the model answer will immediately be made available to you on the Sakai website. You are always required to do a “Compare Documents” between your answer and the

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tel:(855)%20603-6988

http://www.luc.edu/ethicsline

http://www.luc.edu/ethicsline

tel:(773)%20508-6039

model answer. This will show you any errors you made, and it is the only way to see those errors and learn how to avoid them on the exam.

To learn how to do this, please see the document labeled “Assignment logistics and comparing documents” on our course’s Sakai website. You can also teach yourself via a Google search, or if you have trouble, then by consulting your tutor.

Note that the resulting document (the one that shows your mistakes) will be hard to read unless you deselect “formatting.” Again, consult the “Assignment logistics” handout and, if you are still unsure, use a Google search or ask your tutor. It is essential to figure this out at the beginning of the semester.

D. Grading

You will receive a grade on each assignment, but the grade will not count at all toward your final grade. The grading scale is from 1 to 3, with “3” being the highest grade and “1” being the lowest grade. Your tutors will try to make the grades available to you before the class meeting following the assignment’s due date, but please be understanding if they can’t meet that deadline. The grades will be available via Sakai.

E. Copying and pasting

It will be very tempting for you to write the answers to assignments by using your word processor’s “copy” and “paste” functions to simply transfer words from the templates or “Answer details” to your answers. But this would be a huge mistake. When you take the final exam, the exam software will make it impossible to copy and paste. So the only way to develop the skills tested on the exam is to write the assignments the same way you’ll write the exam answers: without copying or pasting anything.

In past years, the students who copied and pasted on assignments did significantly less well on the final exam (which determines final grades) than they had done throughout the semester, whereas the students who did the best on the final exam had never copied and pasted when doing their assignments.

There’s no mystery about how to do well in this course. It’s just a matter of putting in the effort to become good at the skill that will be tested on the exam.

F. Turn off automatic spell check

On the exam, I don’t think there is an automatic spell-check feature — i.e., a feature that underlines possible misspellings while you type — although there might be a non-automatic spell-check feature. Anyway, I urge you to turn off the

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automatic spell-check feature on your word processor while you write the assignments, in order to simulate the exam conditions and prepare for them.

G. Your name

Unlike the final exam, the assignments and midterm are not anonyomous. (They don’t count toward your grade, as explained above in more detail.) Please put your name in the filename you use when you create the Microsoft Word document for each assignment and the midterm. If you’d like, you can also put your name in each document itself.

H. Writing the answers

For additional guidance and requirements about how to write your answers on the assignments and final exam, it is essential to read the separate handout titled “Style requirements for assignments and exams,” which is available on this course’s Sakai website. (But you don’t have to read the whole thing right now. It’ll be assigned in parts for early class meetings.)

Quizzes

Like all assignments, all quizzes are due by 8:30 p.m. on the Wednesday night BEFORE the class meeting for which they are assigned.

The best way to do each quiz question is to try to figure out the answer on your own at first, then input your answer without yet submitting the quiz, and then go through the Flow chart to check whether your answer needs to be changed before you submit the quiz.

When you go through the Flow chart, you should train yourself to identify the specific words of the fact pattern that reveal the answer to each question. I advise you to actually point at (or highlight) the words every time. This may seem a little tedious, but it’s the way to avoid making mistakes. For example, I guarantee you that some students will make mistakes on quiz questions this semester because they’ll assume the victim died when in fact the victim lived (or vice versa). That mistake should be impossible to make because the fact pattern always says specifically whether the victim lived or died, and the Flow chart always prompts you to answer that question. But students make the mistake anyway because they go too quickly. They just assume the victim died (or lived), rather than specifically pointing to the word in the fact pattern that says so.

If you hired a lawyer for something, would you want your lawyer to work quickly and risk making errors, or would you want your lawyer to work slowly and avoid making errors? Good lawyers work slowly and meticulously to avoid errors. To make sure you always get the right answer, you should slow down on the quizzes, go through the Flow chart every time, and even physically point to the part of the fact pattern that answers each Flow chart question as you go along. If you do that, then you’ll not only get the answers right, but you’ll also be training yourself to analyze legal questions slowly and accurately rather than quickly and inaccurately.

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Class meeting 1: Mental states and homicide

Please do all of the following assignments in the order they’re listed below.

1. Print out all materials and make a binder

• Print out all course materials from the Sakai website, including this syllabus, and put them into a binder for easy reference throughout the semester and during the final exam.

—> This includes:

Syllabus, Course Packet, Summary of the law, Flow chart, Speed limits, Answer details, Style requirements for assignments and exams, Assignment logistics and comparing documents, For final exam, and all 16 of the templates

—> Bring this binder to every class meeting AND to the midterm and final exams.

2. Read

(a) Course Packet pages 1 and 2 (excerpts of Model Penal Code § 2.02, § 2.08(2), and § 210.1–210.4)

(b) Summary of the law pages 1 through 16

(c) Speed limits handout

3. Watch

• Note: The website with Panopto videos will look different to different students, based on which web browser they use and their previous use of Panopto in other courses. The following instructions are general guidelines that should work for most people; but if your settings are different, you should still be able to find the relevant videos easily by their names and numbers.

• Instructions that should work for most of you: Go to our course’s Sakai website, and click on “Panopto” on the left-hand side of your screen. Then click on the link that says “Press here to launch.” Then click on the folder that says “Folder #1: Mental states and homicide.” Then watch all 10 videos in that folder, in order from Video #1 through Video #10.

All from Folder #1: Mental states and homicide

(a) Video #1: Introduction

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(b) Video #2: Mens rea of purpose

(c) Video #3: Mens rea of knowledge

(d) Video #4: Mens rea of recklessness

(e) Video #5: Mens rea of negligence

(f) Video #6: Intoxication

(g) Video #7: Homicide basics

(h) Video #8: Homicide “extra” — recklessness plus

(i) Video #9: Homicide “extra” — BRAKER

(j) Video #10: Homicide “extra” — EED

4. Quizzes

• Take the following quizzes on the Sakai site in order, using the FLOW CHART very carefully to help you answer every quiz question:

(i) Short quiz 1 (USE THE FLOW CHART)(ii) Unintentional killing quiz (USE THE FLOW CHART)(iii) Short quiz 2 (USE THE FLOW CHART)(iv) Intentional killing quiz (USE THE FLOW CHART)

—> All of these are due to be completed and submitted by 8:30 p.m. the Wednesday night before our first class meeting. When you’ve submitted each quiz, the correct answers will become available on the website.

—> For every quiz throughout the semester, ALWAYS use the Flow chart.

—> Actually, the best way to do each quiz question is to try to figure out the answer on your own at first, then input your answer without yet submitting the quiz, and then go through the Flow chart to check whether your answer needs to be revised before you submit the quiz.

5. Read

(a) Style requirements for assignments and exams

—> If reading all these details gets too difficult or intimidating, then focus on the first two-and-a-half pages and skim the rest. You’ll need to refer back to the later pages, though, when you’re quoting the MPC in your writing assignments.

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(b) Assignment logistics and comparing documents

6. Write

• There are four writing assignments for this class meeting — Unintentional killing A through D, as listed below. All four of these writing assignments are due to be turned in electronically on the course website by 8:30 p.m. on the Wednesday night before our first class meeting.

• Please put your name in the filename you use when you create the Microsoft Word document for each assignment. If you’d like, you can also put your name in each document itself.

• When you do each writing assignment, be sure to follow the rules about ellipses and dashes on page 3 of the “Style requirements” document.

—> Don’t “insert” the ellipsis symbol. Instead, type out the periods with a space between each one, like this: . . .

—> And where large dashes are used, DO insert em dashes (which look like this: “—”), NOT hyphens (which look like this: “-”) and NOT en dashes (which look like this: “–”).

(a) Start with Unintentional killing “A.” To do that first assignment, simply copy the template for Unintentional killing #1 word for word except for changing the names and whatever else (if anything) needs to be changed given the differences in facts between the two questions. But don’t use your word processor’s “copy” or “paste” functions: re-type it all, as you’ll need to do on the exam.

—> The model answer will become available when you submit your answer. Compare your answer to the model answer by using the “Compare Documents” function on your word processor (and clear the formatting to make it easier for yourself to see the discrepancies). See the document titled “ Assignment logistics and comparing documents.”

• Before doing the next assignment, be sure to read pages 3 and 4 of the “Style requirements” document — the part about changing pronoun genders when quoting the MPC.

(b) Now do Unintentional killing “B.” But you can’t do it the same way you did Unintentional killing “A.” From now on, it won’t work just to copy the whole thing directly from one template. Instead, you need to use the “Answer details” document. The footnotes in that document will show you templates to copy from, and the main text will also give you the text to copy from. (As always, don’t use your word processor’s “copy” or “paste” functions: re-type it all, as you’ll need to do on the exam.)

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—> The model answer will become available when you submit your answer. Compare your answer to the model answer by using the “Compare Documents” function on your word processor (and clear the formatting to make it easier for yourself to see the discrepancies). See the document titled “ Assignment logistics and comparing documents.”

(c) After you have submitted your answer to Unintentional killing “B” and done a “Compare Documents” between it and the model answer, then write your answer to Unintentional killing “C.” From now on, always use the Answer details document to do every assignment, as you should have done on Unintentional killing “B.”

—> Use Compare Documents to compare your answer to the model answer for Unintentional killing “C.”

(d) Repeat this process for Unintentional killing “D.” Use “Answer details” to do it, and after you’ve submitted it, then compare your answer to the model answer via “Compare Documents.”

• Just as a reminder, the four writing assignments for this class meeting are:

Unintentional killing “A” (see above for how to do it)

Unintentional killing “B” (see above: you can’t do it like you did “A”)

Unintentional killing “C” (see above: you can’t do it like you did “A”)

Unintentional killing “D” (see above: you can’t do it like you did “A”)

Class meeting 2: Self-defense


1. Read

(a) Course Packet page 3


2. Watch

• Go to our course’s Sakai website, and click on “Panopto” on the left-hand side of your screen. Then click on the link that says “Press here to launch.” Then click on the folder that says “Folder #2: Self-defense.” Then watch both of the two videos in that folder, in order from Video #11 through Video #12.

All from Folder #2: Self-defense

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(a) Video #11: Self-defense basics

(b) Video #12: Self-defense — unreasonable belief

3. Quizzes


(i) Self-defense quiz (USE THE FLOW CHART)(ii) Short quiz 3 (USE THE FLOW CHART)(iii) Short quiz 4 (USE THE FLOW CHART)

—> All of these are due to be completed and submitted by 8:30 p.m. the Wednesday night before our next class meeting. When you’ve submitted each quiz, the correct answers will become available on the website.



4. Read and/or review

(a) Style requirements for assignments and exams, especially pages 3-6.


5. Write

• All four of the writing assignments below are due to be turned in electronically on the course website by 8:30 p.m. on the Wednesday night before our next class meeting. The model answer for each assignment will become available when you submit your answer to that assignment. Compare your answer to the model answer by using the “Compare Documents” function on your word processor (and clear the formatting to make it easier for yourself to see the discrepancies). See the document titled “ Assignment logistics and comparing documents.”


• For each assignment, use “Answer details” to do it. ALWAYS START WITH THE “MAP OF TOPICS” ON PAGE 2 OF THE “ANSWER DETAILS”

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DOCUMENT. **Never** just skip to the specific subject heading that you think the assignment covers. After you’ve submitted your answer, then compare it to the model answer via “Compare Documents” before you start the next assignment.

(a) Intentional killing “A”

(b) Self-defense “A”

(c) Self-defense “B”

(d) Self-defense “C”

Class meeting 3: Attempt and Attempt / Self-defense


1. Read

(a) Course Packet page 4


2. Watch

• Go to our course’s Sakai website, and click on “Panopto” on the left-hand side of your screen. Then click on the link that says “Press here to launch.” Then click on the folder that says “Folder #3: Attempt and Attempt/Self-defense.” Then watch all four videos in that folder, in order from Video #13 through Video #16.

All from Folder #3: Attempt and Attempt/Self-defense

(a) Video #13: Attempt — mens rea of purpose

(b) Video #14: Attempt — substantial step

(c) Video #15: Attempt — renunciation

(d) Video #16: Attempt/Self-defense

3. Quizzes


(i) Attempt quiz (USE THE FLOW CHART)(ii) Short quiz 5 (USE THE FLOW CHART)

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(iii) Combined Short quiz 6 and 7 (USE THE FLOW CHART)(iv) Short quiz 8 (USE THE FLOW CHART)




4. Review if necessary



5. Write

• All four of the writing assignments below are due to be turned in electronically on the course website by 8:30 p.m. on the Wednesday night before our next class meeting. The model answer for each assignment will become available when you submit your answer to that assignment. Compare your answer to the model answer by using the “Compare Documents” function on your word processor (and clear the formatting to make it easier for yourself to see the discrepancies). See the document titled “ Assignment logistics and comparing documents.”


• For each assignment, use “Answer details” to do it. ALWAYS START WITH THE “MAP OF TOPICS” ON PAGE 2 OF THE “ANSWER DETAILS” DOCUMENT. **Never** just skip to the specific subject heading that you think the assignment covers. After you’ve submitted your answer, then compare it to the model answer via “Compare Documents” before you start the next assignment.

(a) Attempt “A”

(b) Attempt “B”

(c) Attempt / Self-defense “A”

(d) Attempt / Self-defense “B”

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Class meeting 4: “Minor errors”; other crimes; omissions, conspiracy, insanity, duress, strict liability, and accomplice liability

1. Quizzes


(i) Short quiz 9 (USE THE FLOW CHART)(ii) Short quiz 10 (USE THE FLOW CHART)(iii) Short quiz 11 (USE THE FLOW CHART)(iv) Short quiz 12 (USE THE FLOW CHART)(v) Short quiz 13 (USE THE FLOW CHART)







3. Write

• Midterm exam (which includes two parts, just like the final exam)

Midterm exam logistics

a) You can find the midterm exam on the website under “Tests and Quizzes” — not “Assignments.”

b) There are two parts to the midterm, just like the final exam. Make sure to do both. They are separate documents within “Tests and Quizzes.” Note that the model answer is one document that contains answers to both parts of the midterm.

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• Note: When you take “Part 2” of the midterm, you will face extreme time pressure — just like you will when you answer the fourth question on the final exam (though that question will not count toward your grade unless it’s necessary to break ties). Please be prepared to write much, much faster than usual in order to finish Part 2. You will probably make more mistakes, but you need to try to write as cleanly as possible under time constraints for that question.

c) The midterm exam is due to be turned in electronically on the course website by 8:30 p.m. on the Wednesday night before our next class meeting.

d) The midterm does not count toward your final grade at all.

e) Please put your name in the filename you use when you create the Microsoft Word document for each part of the midterm. If you’d like, you can also put your name in each document itself.

f) Important notes about the model answer:

i) Unfortunately, I can’t release the model answer for the midterm until the due date, so the model answer won’t become available until 8:30 p.m. on the Wednesday before our next class meeting even if you’ve submitted your answer earlier.

ii) The model answer will be available on the website under “Resources.”

iii) The model answer includes answers to both parts of the midterm exam (that is, four total questions) in one document.

iv) When the model answer does become available, compare your answer to the model answer by using the “Compare Documents” function on your word processor (and clear the formatting to make it easier for yourself to see the discrepancies). See the document titled “Assignment logistics and comparing documents.”

Class meeting 5: Punishment theory; and a visit from the real world

1. Quizzes


(i) Short quiz 14 (USE THE FLOW CHART)(ii) Short quiz 15 (USE THE FLOW CHART)(iii) Short quiz 16 (USE THE FLOW CHART)

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(iv) Short quiz 17 (USE THE FLOW CHART)(v) Short quiz 18 (USE THE FLOW CHART)(vi) Short quiz 19 (USE THE FLOW CHART)







3. Write

• All six of the writing assignments below are due to be turned in electronically on the course website by 8:30 p.m. on the Wednesday night before our next class meeting. The model answer for each assignment will become available when you submit your answer to that assignment. Compare your answer to the model answer by using the “Compare Documents” function on your word processor (and clear the formatting to make it easier for yourself to see the discrepancies). See the document titled “ Assignment logistics and comparing documents.”



(a) Unlabeled “A”

(b) Unlabeled “B”

(c) Unlabeled “C”

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(d) Unlabeled “D”

(e) Unlabeled “E”

(f) Unlabeled “F”

Class meeting 6: Beyond the words; victims in criminal law; the future of criminal law; and concluding remarks

1. Quizzes


(i) Big unlabeled quiz (USE THE FLOW CHART)(ii) Short quiz 20 (USE THE FLOW CHART)(iii) Short quiz 21 (USE THE FLOW CHART)(iv) Short quiz 22 (USE THE FLOW CHART)(v) Short quiz 23 (USE THE FLOW CHART)







3. Write

• All six of the writing assignments below are due to be turned in electronically on the course website by 8:30 p.m. on the Wednesday night before our next class meeting. The model answer for each assignment will become available when you submit your answer to that assignment. Compare your answer to the model answer by using the “Compare Documents” function on your word processor (and clear the

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formatting to make it easier for yourself to see the discrepancies). See the document titled “ Assignment logistics and comparing documents.”



(a) Unlabeled “G”

(b) Unlabeled “H”

(c) Unlabeled “I”

(d) Unlabeled “J”

(e) Unlabeled “K”

(f) Unlabeled “L”

Class meeting 7: Final exam

1. Read

• “For final exam” document

2. Recommended studying for exam

(a) Re-read “For final exam” document(b) Re-read “Style requirements for assignments and exams”(c) Re-take some assignments and the midterm under timed conditions and compare your answers to the model answers.(d) Take the practice final exams posted on our course’s Sakai site (in the “Resources” section) under timed conditions and compare your answers to the model answers (which are also under “Resources”).

• Important note: On the exam, I tend to ask questions that are not identical to questions on any assignments or templates. However, my questions on the final exam are usually similar to questions I’ve emphasized a lot in assignments and/or the midterm and/or the practice final exams. There aren’t all that many possible variations, so if you go through the “Answer details” document and think about what

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would be (slightly) different from, but still similar to, the questions I’ve emphasized on assignments and/or the midterm and/or the practice final exams, then you might be able to anticipate what I’ll ask on the final exam and prepare accordingly. And you’ll always be able to get every word right by using the Answer details. I’ll never ask anything that isn’t completely covered there.

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