Criminal Law Exam

Recap: 3 hours. 3 essay questions. Open book. Thought it was a hard exam. The problem with this class is that we didn't deal with the good stuff like homicide, rape, entrapment, etc. All we did for the entire semester was statutory interpretation. The prof. was the nicest man ever but we had no clue as to what we were supposed to learn in order to prepare for the exam.

Q.1. We had a statute that was 3 pages long (outrageous since they're usually a sentence long). Then the fact pattern was another 3. We were to assume the role of judge's clerk & write a memo advising the judge as to what issues could probably be raised by this statute. Then the prof. wrote a "pet peeve" guideline of what he didn't want as part of our answer (it had everything I was planning on writing). Befuddled!

Q.2. One page fact pattern dealing with a statute that had been violated & to discuss based on the fact pattern whether or not the appeals court should overturn the ruling. OK.

Q.3. A revision suggested for insanity & intoxication & a Senator trying to decide if he should support these revisions. Write memo advising him. Difficult because the intoxication revision dealt with burden of proof & I didn't have much to say about it.

Anyway, glad its over. Oh, with about 1 hr to go, one guy got up & left! Didn't even bat an eyelash. Too busy wondering what to write about. All weekend will be studying for Monday's Civ Pro exam.