What you will learn, course rules and requirements, and helpful advice.

The Story of the Trial of Jesus and of Grace Sherwood. What were "trials" used here? What does it teach us?

"False cases," the lawyer's role, and whether this "gets at truth?"

Edith Bunker and the ritual of the layperson workgroup

Describes how state/federal courts are organized, and their culture.

Describes the rules of court procedure and what lawyers do with them

rules for examination, types of witnesses, attorney tactics, privileges, etc.

The game of "relevance" and what it means, and the game of hearsay

Introduces trial court discretion by looking at review standards and how they work

Helps us see the normative issues surrounding the local power of trial judges and how that power is used

Discusses types of crimes, the elements and the basic kinds of affirmative defenses

Discusses the various levels of mental fault, how to negate them and the politics of drafting crimes with little or seemingly no mental state at all

Demonstrates how the system diagnoses Miranda problems and how it handles search/seizure violations