Description

Introduction

Because you’ve just been through Dr. Shields’ criminal law class, you were hired as an associate prosecutor in Soooie County, State of Sooieland.  On your first day, you find a number of case files piled on your desk.  Your supervisor has informed you that she wants to see what you’re made of. She points to the pile and says, “You might as well get your feet wet with these.  Do me a favor, file charges in each of these cases.”   Before she leaves, she tells you to:

1. file the most severe charge(s) you can prove against each defendant—she does not want any acquittals
2. not worry about lesser included offenses or inchoate crimes (filing counts for Capital murder and First degree Murder for the same criminal act, etc.)
3. not worry about possible defenses the defendant may raise, that is the defense attorney’s job, not yours.
4. file multiple charges if you can. In other words, feel free to charge the defendant with multiple offenses if there are multiple criminal acts.
5. justify your decisions by listing the facts that support a) each element of the crime, b) mens rea, and attendant circumstances (if any)
6. the only laws in Shieldsland are those on your statutes, do not include offenses that are not listed.

These should be written in the following format:

1. Tell me which case file you are answering
2. Then, list how many counts you are filing against each defendant.
3. After that, List each count against each defendant.  Please list the full count and any subsection:  e.g.  1 count of Capital Murder 5-10-101, under subsection (1).
4. Then, briefly justify your answers.  In other words, BRIEFLY (in a sentence or two, explain what facts support a finding of guilt [beyond a reasonable doubt] for the Actus Reus, Mens Rea, and other attendant circumstances if the statute contains any (e.g. define deadly weapon if the statute includes it, or Extreme Indifference to the Value of Human life if the statute include it). Do the same thing for each count you file against the defendant, again briefly.  Do that for each defendant if there is more than one. You may make logical inferences, but you should not assume facts that are not in the fact pattern.  You transfer intent IF the statute permits it.

Question 1

Case File #1 (40 pts – suggested time 50 minutes)

December 5^th, 11:59 a.m.

Police were dispatched to the home of Darlene Hideswell, at 632 Peaceful Way.  Officers arrived to find Darlene on the front porch, holding her 5-year-old daughter, Carlene.  Darlene told police that she and Butch Beeter, her ex-boyfriend, had been in an argument earlier the night before.  She claimed that she’d ended the relationship and it was an ugly affair, though nothing physical happened.  Butch left the residence when Darlene threatened to call the police.  She said, “I told him not to come back, ever!”  The police ascertained that the home belonged to Darlene and Butch had a separate home across town. Darlene said that Butch showed up at her house earlier and tried to enter the front door, but it was locked.  Butch made his way around the outside of the house where he found an open window. Darlene said she pushed the window shut before Butch get close.  Butch looked up, snarled, and said, “I’m going to beat you to death, you nasty $&@#!!!!”   Butch ran back to the front door and forced it open with his shoulder, breaking the doorframe and splintering the door itself ($350.00 in damage).  As he came in the house, she grabbed Carlene and ran.  He screamed “In there!” pointing to the bathroom.  She led Charlene into the bathroom, locking the door behind her.  In the craziness, Darlene had left her cell phone on the coffee table and couldn’t call for help.  Butch yelled at her, saying, “ You aren’t ever leaving that room, not until you apologize to me. I’m taking my VCR, my shoes and I’m gettin’ my beer outta the fridge, too!”  With tears in her eyes, Darlene told police that she was afraid of him and he’d never been this angry before. She told officers that she wanted to see where he was and began to unlock the bathroom door.  Right as she did, a loud crash sounded from the adjoining room.  She didn’t see what happened, but reported that she relocked the door and backed up a step.   Darlene begged for him to leave, to which he responded, “Didn’t ya hear me?  You’re never leaving that room. All you have to do to fix this is to take me back!  If you don’t I’ll kill ya!”   Darlene said she didn’t respond to him.   Butch did leave, eventually, but not before taking his VCR, his shoes, his beer, and a bronze figurine of Buddha that she had just bought on eBay for $1,250.  After she was convinced that Butch was gone, she opened the door and slowly exited.   Her I-phone ($501.00) was smashed and her possessions were totally thrown about the house.  The loud noise had apparently been a dining room chair ($450) he had smashed on the floor.   As she walked to the front window she noticed that her car, a 1963 Corvette worth about $60,000, was on fire.  A neighbor called the police and fire department and reported seeing a man pouring something on the car and then lighting it.  The car was destroyed.  As of this morning, the Fire Marshall is certain that the fire was set by using a bottle of pure grain alcohol as an accelerant; an empty bottle was found in the shrubs next to the car.  One set of fingerprints were lifted from the bottle–Butch Beeter’s. Police arrested Butch last night, he has lawyered-up and he isn’t saying anything.

Answer 1

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Question 2

Case File #2 (30 Points – suggested time 30 minutes)

December 6^th, 3AM.

Larseny Arsoun, and French expat living in Shieldsland, is dismayed by loud sounds and excessive noise.  In the past three months he has contacted the Shieldsland Police at least four dozen times complaining about music from the Skank Pit, a local country and western bar across the street from his apartment.  Police responded a few times early on, but determined that the music levels fell within acceptable decibels, and informed him that there was nothing they could do.  The police had ignored him since.  Despite being ignored, Larseny’s complaints have poured into the police station every night until Friday night, May 5th.   Larseny entered the Skank Pit at 1:49 am on May 5th, just before closing.  He paid the cover charge (a pack of Camel cigarettes, no filters) and went to the crowded dance floor.  Forcing his way through the crowd, and sporting a think layer of body sweat from at least 8 people who rubbed against him, Larsenywent to the back of the stage.  When nobody was looking, he slipped behind the crudely stitched canvas bags the club used as stage curtains.  He found a cubbyhole under the stage partially hidden by a half-full, 4-foot-tall spittoon.  Ignoring the strong smell of BO, stale cigarette smoke, and Copenhagen, he pushed debris away from the opening, got down on this hands and knees and slipped into the darkened cubbyhole, his fingers and knees sticking to whatever was on the floor.  “Sacre bleu” he said to himself, “C’est dégoûtant!” (Colloquially: Oh Gosh, this is disgusting).

The bar closed at 2am, and at 2:15am, the last of the human dregs had slipped into the tepid night to entertain themselves elsewhere.  Larseny noted when the lights came on that the bartender and four hostesses started cleaning the bar, haphazardly sweeping up the big debris, but taking no care to squeegee the filth from any surface.  Larseny had seen enough; the place was a pigpen and something had to be done.  Dismayed by the careless attitudes of the employees, Larseny pried his hands and knees from the soiled floor, withdrew a 7.65 caliber MAB brevet pistol and confronted the five workers, gun pointed in their general direction.  One of the women was pregnant, so he pointed to the door and told her to leave.   When she exited, Larseny forced the bartender to lock the doors behind her. Then, Larseny directed the three other women and the bartender into the most disgusting windowless bathroom he’d ever seen and locked them inside.   One of the women cursed Lars, calling him a “Freaking cheese-eating surrender monkey” to which he shook his head and sighed, “you filthy trollop” in English, and moved away.

Larseny went to the sound system and glanced around.  He saw an axe in glass case marked, In case of fire, break glass.  Larseny broke the glass ($10) and retrieved the axe.  He hacked the sound system into small pieces ($17,000).  He noted the filthy disco ball hanging above the dance floor and took aim.  “I will shatter you,” he screamed.  He fired three shots into it, and cursed, “But of course, C’est du plastique!” (it’s plastic”) when it didn’t shatter.   Nonetheless, the disco ball was damaged and will require replacing ($9.95 + shipping and handling).    Larseny took the axe and began smashing bottles of liquor.  He broke bottles of the club’s very best Evan Williams Whiskey and laid waste to their collection of Boone’s Farm wine and even decapitated a bottle of Kessler Whiskey that was bottled 1983.  The total damage to the liquor supply was $954.   Larseny noted that the Whiskey was very low quality, but that it did make the bar smell better, “une amelioration” (an improvement).  Next he emptied the cash register, but he didn’t take all the money.  He rationalized that each night he’d been kept awake was worth $62.25, and he calculated that he had been terrorized by Hank Williams and Meryl Haggard for 90 nights.  So he took $5,602.50 in cash and foodstamps, putting the rest back in the drawer.

With all the Whiskey on the floor, Larseny thought the place would burn in an instant.  He considered leaving the workers in the bathroom, but said to himself, “Je ne suis pas un animal” (I am no animal!).   He opened the bathroom door and ordered the staff into the parking lot.  The aggressive waitress questioned his manhood.  He struck her aside the head with his fist.  The blow caused a minor cut, and slightly dazed her just long enough for him to force her out of the building.  In the parking lot, all four victims ran to their Dodge pickup trucks.   He let them go.  He pulled out a lighter and walked back inside.  He dunked a role of paper towels in whisky and created a long fuse from the bar to the door.  He lit the end and walked calmly back to his apartment, singing “Que sera, sera”.   The paper towel burned across the floor but went out as the flame crossed a dense pool of sweat.   The building suffered no real damage, but cleaning up the burn marks on the floor will cost $100.   Police arrived a few minutes later, and after speaking to the bartender, they placed Larseny Arsoun under arrest.

Your turn; prosecute.

Answer 2

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Question 3

Case File #3 (30 pts – suggested time 20 minutes)

Report Filed, December 6^th, 11:00 PM

Ivanna Byrnet was angry with her ex, Phil Landers.   Phil dumped Ivanna for an older woman, Fanny Furrent, and he kicked Ivanna out of his home (she’d lived there for a month, but never paid rent, i.e. it was his place) two weeks ago. Everywhere Ivanna goes, she sees Phil and Fanny.  Ivanna wanted her belongings back and confronted Phil and Fanny at Phil’s doublewide trailer: She demanding her possessions. They didn’t let her inside, but after a few minutes they tossed a trash bag on the front porch with all Ivanna’s best wigs crammed in the bottom.  Ivanna dug through them to find a bottle of Coty perfume and a half-pack of Good Value Bologna.  “Yo trash, that’s all ya got in here—now get the frick off my porch,” Fanny demanded.  Ivanna asked for her clothes, to which Phil says, “Fanny and I done giv’em all to the goodwill—they’re gone.”  Fanny added, “Can imagine who’d want ‘em, but yeah, I helped him.”  Ivanna left the porch as she was asked and began to cry—while they weren’t much, all her clothes had been in the trailer and she doesn’t have $600 to replace them.   Ivanna hid in a drainage ditch across the street from Phil’s (a public space) until Phil led Fanny out of the trailer to go dancing at a country bar.   While the lovebirds were gone, Ivanna poured gasoline on Fanny’s old ‘66 Plymouth Fury (an old car) and set it on fire. Then Ivanna entered the Landers’ trailer with a can of gas.  She poured it on a velvet Elvis carpet—Phil’s favorite possession. She lit a match and threw it on the rug.  When it fire caught, she ran away from the trailer and went back to her room at the Crusty Pillow Motel.   A neighbor called in the burning Plymouth and reported that she saw Ivanna set the fire.  The police investigate the house.  They tell you that the fire pretty much burned itself out on the rug.  There’s a little smoke damage and some damage from the heat, but Investigators suggest the damage in (and to) the trailer is less than $1000 all together.   Fanny’s 1966 Fury is a complete loss—it was worth $763.00 according to an expert witness.

Answer 3

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