SAMPLE ASSIGNMENTS FOR CRIMINAL EVIDENCE/PROCEDURE
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1. Research and Find a State Law guaranteeing the full scope of an individual right or creating a new right (new federalism).  Find a state guarantee that involves a deeply significant, highly fundamental right, expressing an understanding of why the right is significant or more important than others. Anything that expresses the full, substantive scope of a right, not just a minor procedural change. The phenomenon you're researching is called the new federalism. Under well-established rules, any state that goes beyond the federal standards for protecting constitutional rights is immune from federal review. States also commonly declare a new or stronger right by reference to it being consistent with its state constitution; and this approach insulates the state court decision from Supreme Court review. Other examples include: states who have imposed greater restrictions on police activity than the federal law requires; and states who have struck down pretext or profiling stops to enhance the freedom to travel, for example, for residents of their state.

2. Prepare an application for a Search Warrant on somebody you know and make up hypothetical information about them. What you turn in will be an Affidavit.

3. Perform a "You are a Law Clerk" assignment where you tell the judge what jury instructions to give under certain circumstances. Assume you are a Law Clerk, hired by the judge in this case, for your way with words in expressing both the necessary legal language and also adding your own creative language or analogies that would allow a 6th-grade educated jury to understand. It's not necessary for you to write anything other than exactly what the judge should say to the jury. Do not assume much additional circumstances beyond the facts given.

Example:

#0 (Sample stage of trial): It's a rainy day outside the courthouse. There's just been a loud thunderclap that shakes the building and a flash of lightening. The prosecutor makes some comment like "God must be telling us what needs to be done in this case."

#0 (Sample answer): Ladies and Gentlemen of the Jury, I must tell you to disregard that last comment by counsel. You are not allowed to believe that God has any direct personal relationship with this case, other than His wanting you to remember that the defendant is to be presumed innocent until proven guilty.


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#1: The jury enters the courtroom and a trial for robbery, rape, and felony murder is about to begin in a case involved two defendants.

#2: One of the first witnesses to testify is the police officer who arrived first on the scene. He appears in the courtroom late, and appears to have rushed to get there. His uniform is messed up and sloppy, and there appears to be blood stains on his shirt.

#3: The defense attorney calls a witness who is not on the discovery list of witnesses to be called. The prosecution objects strenuously, and tempers flare between opposing counsel with name calling, accusations, and arguments on both sides.

#4: The prosecution offers DNA evidence to prove that the defendant is not who he says he is.

#5: While the defendant gets up and prepares to take the stand, he suddenly bolts for the door.

#6: The jury cannot help but overhear the loud protesters outside the courthouse screaming chants that the defendant is innocent and the victim of a racist police force.

#7: In frustration with the way questioning of the defendant by their defense counsel is going, the prosecutor blurts out "Come on now, haven't you already served time for robbery in another state?"

#8: A series of witnesses have just testified that the last known whereabouts of the victim was at the defendant's apartment.

#9: One of the eyewitnesses has just failed a test of eyesight in the courtroom set up by defense counsel where they couldn't read some large print from across the room.

#10: During eyewitness testimony which pinpointed one of the multiple defendants as the trigger man, the co-defendant suddenly scoots his chair away from the defendant that was pinpointed.

#11: A rather poor quality wiretap recording is played for the jury as a piece of key evidence. There's a lot of static on the recording.

#12 Right before a break for recess, one of the victim's brothers, who has been sitting quietly in the back row, stands up and shouts "You lousy SOB, you're going to pay for what you did to my sister."

#13: Exhibit 3B is entered into evidence as a bag of material containing dried blood and semen stains. While the evidence is being passed around the jury, the bag pops open and the evidence falls to the floor.

#14: One of the witnesses called to the stand refuses to swear on the Bible, saying they are an Atheist, but that they will take an affirmation, not an oath, to tell the truth.

#15: One of the lawyers in the case finishes making an impassioned argument (not a closing argument) that is extremely eloquent and persuasive, although it probably has nothing to do with the facts of the case.

#16: The trial has been going back and forth on the issue of whether or not Post-traumatic stress disorder involves hallucinations.

#17: Closing arguments are over, and the jury is ready to deliberate.
 

4. Write a habeas corpus writs. 

Essentially, your job is to write your ticket out of jail. Assume you are incarcerated at Central Penitentiary and that you are also a "jailhouse lawyer." Listed below are the facts in your case that led to your current incarceration. You are to write a habeas corpus writ. Each will focus on a different way to convince the federal judiciary that your state incarceration is ungrounded because of irregularities if not illegalities in the criminal procedure that was followed. Make your best case by remaining focused on what you think is the most salient issue in each writ. I'll take the score from the one that I think is most focused and is most likely to be successful to "get you out of prison."

Here's what makes a good habeas corpus writ:

• The convicted offender must claim that their defense counsel was incompetent. It's not enough to say that they made tactical errors or didn't have time to raise an objection at trial. In repeated habeas corpus claims, the offender must come up with some new way of describing how their counsel was incompetent or ineffective, otherwise the claim is regarded as frivolous (abuse of writ rule).

• The convicted offender must show that the failure to raise any objection, or the fact of being represented by ineffective counsel substantially prejudiced their case, either by some piece of evidence weighing too heavily on the judge or jury or by a prejudiced atmosphere covering the whole trial (cause and prejudice rule).

• The convicted offender must demonstrate that they are victims of a manifest injustice or miscarriage of justice. It's not that they are claiming their innocence. They are questioning the fact that they are legally guilty via some mention of procedural irregularities, but they are not normally allowed to refer to the reasonable doubt standard. (manifest injustice rule).

5. Mock Trial or Sentencing Simulation

"REPORT CARD" TEMPLATE
(A guide to the document each student creates and turns in over each reading assignment to satisfy the writing assignment)

Give a letter grade score (either A, B, or C) across seven categories of evaluation (see rubric) with a short commentary explaining any B or C scores. Do not give all A grades.  Then, immediately under your scores, include a paragraph or two (250 words minimum - by doing enough of these, they will add up to eight pages of writing) providing grammatically correct commentary which fully explains and justifies your overall evaluation as well as demonstrates what you've learned or understood from reading the material.  A sample appears below, but please remember it's a sample and you should come up with your own version.

To: instructor
From: name of student (use full name as enrolled in course)
Assignment: be sure to name the lecture note you're evaluating (e.g., Asymmetric War lecture)

        1. B --- the writing used too many weasel words...
        2. A
        3. B --- a chart or diagram would have helped my understanding...
        4. A
        5. B --- there should have been more coverage of the current crisis in Iran...
        6. A
        7. C --- this lecture was useless to me as I don't really care about anything asymmetric... 
        Comments:  I give this lecture note a B+ overall because it's informative, even though some of the material is confusing and over my head.  It seems to go into theoretical or definitional matters too deeply.  The author convincingly says that certain things are important, like as one line reads "IPsec protocol can subsume VPN privileges" but I'm not all that interested in the techno-geek details as well as theoretical debates over the definition of asymmetric warfare.  I expected or would have preferred to learn about which countries were attacking us with computers and what can be done about it.  Don't get me wrong; the lecture note was useful in other ways. It helped me understand the full scope of the problem, such as the fact I learned that 50 countries have advanced cyberwarfare units.  It would have been helpful to have some images or pictures in some places to better understand some ideas.  My biggest critique, however, is that the reading was lengthy and a chore to read.  I think it also lacked a "voice" or strong author opinion in some places because they seemed to skirt away on some issues or sit on the fence.  One thing I've learned from this and other readings is that without considering the personal element, one can easily get bogged down in a bunch of relativism where anything goes theoretically.  I clicked on and followed some of the web links in the reading, and the one I found most interesting led to the Council on Foreign Relations.  I might also mention that the link to Korean Hacker Quarterly is broken and doesn't work.  I tried searching for where that website might have gone, but couldn't find anything.  In terms of suggested printed resources in the bibliography, I think the book entitled "Crusaders, Criminals, and Crazies" looks the most interesting to me for possibly read later on.  I think this lecture ought to be required reading for this course and others.  I certainly could have used it when I was working on a term paper in a class I had last semester....
    Another thing I learned from this lecture was...[second paragraph optional]       

This has been an illustration of how easy it is to do the writing assignments by demonstrating reading comprehension.

Last updated: Sept. 28, 2006
Not an official webpage of APSU, copyright restrictions apply, see Megalinks in Criminal Justice
O'Connor, T.  (Date of Last Update at bottom of page). In Part of web cited (Windows name for file at top of browser), MegaLinks in Criminal Justice. Retrieved from http://www.apsu.edu/oconnort/rest of URL accessed on today's date.