The Hypos

Who would have thunk Criminal Law would be so. . so. . . so. . .

A child chased down the road by a dog. She runs towards the open door of a stranger’s house. The homeowner, aware of her plight, slams the door in the child’s face. In determining legal responsibility, should it matter whether the homeowner, aware of the child’s situation, closes an open door or simply fails to open a closed one?

X stabs Y, a woman he does not realize is pregnant. X has the intent to kill Y. Y does not die, but later gives birth to the child who dies several months later of complications from the stab wound. Does X have the necessary legal intent to be convicted of killing the baby?

The bad aim case: H intends to kill G, but with his bad aim, he actually kills the innocent bystander J. While it is clear that H can be convicted of murdering J, can he also be charged with attempted murder of G? What if the bullet killed both of them? Could G be prosecuted for two counts of INTENT to kill for the actions of one bullet?

My brain hurts.

The Science Museum

Today I did not study. Today I did not open a book. Tomorrow I might regret it, but today I drove four hours round trip to go to the science museum in St. Louis. I don’t like to drive, but I did like the science museum. I love that it is free and I could go for just a little while without feeling like I wasted my money. I loved to see all the kids and grownups, all having a mini adventure just like me. Despite my dislike of driving, my head was full of daydreams and my IPOD was on shuffle, and the time really flew by. It’s funny how that shuffle thing works. For months, I waited for “The Woman He Loves” by Alabama to come on and never heard it once. (Did I just admit to the entire world that I actually like a country song? Trust me - it is just an anomaly). Of course today the song came on. But instead of not wanting to hear it, I just kept thinking: You can tell a lot about a man, by the woman he lets go.

I really do like the song, not in the weird dominating way in which it's presented, but more in a way of expressing that you can tell a lot about anybody by the people that they choose to be with (or without). We are all defined by the choices that we make, even when others don't know or understand those choices. In fact, sometimes I believe that we are most defined by the choices we make when no one is watching. Which is ironic, because our only window into understanding others is by looking at their outward expressions of their choices. All right, I might be reading a little much into it, but music is like that, sometimes it makes you think about more than you actually hear. (That and crim law has me on this weird philosophical bent) Here are the lyrics:

You can tell a lot about a man
By the woman he loves
'Cause nothing else shows a part of his soul
Like she does
And she'd be the one to swear that he hung
The moon above

Yeah you can tell a lot about a man
By the woman he loves
She knows him inside out
The things he dreams about
And makes them come true when she can
She knows all of his faults
The demons he's fought
With nothin' but his hard-workin' hands

And he calls out her name
In passion and pain
She makes him stronger each time
Yeah it's there on her lips
And her fingertips
That she's with him to 'til end of the line

(chorus)

Yeah you can tell a lot about a man
By the woman he loves
He loves
He always loves

The First Week of Classes

The first full week of classes draws to a close and I can’t imagine doing this for another 2.5 years.  Although my body attended classes beginning last Thursday, my mind only joined in yesterday.  This was certainly not the start to classes that I envisioned, but I am upbeat and excited to get into the groove now.  So the lowdown is that classes seem really different this semester.  I certainly felt by the end of last semester that I was getting into the groove, or at least understanding what was going on.  This semester it feels like all the rules have changed.  Now we are expected to do nearly double the reading, and they actually get to everything.  I already feel like I am careening on a rollercoaster – except that I like that.  So here is the class overviews, thus far:

Lawering:  Still don’t know what this class is going to be about.  We have met once, and the professor just made a big deal about how great it is to take a class about the profession that we have chosen.  Then we got some cookies, and our partner had to negotiate to get them from us.  The text is not in yet and nobody seems to know when it will be in.  This class ranks low in terms of stress thus far.

Advocacy and Research: Again, only been to this class once.  This is with the same students and same professor as Legal Research and Writing from last semester.  On the first day she handed back our Memos from first semester (I have not looked at mine yet) and talked to us about how NOT to focus on grades.  Love her!  This semester we will be writing a lot – big surprise.  We will also have to present our appellate brief in moot court.  I envision a lot of preparation there and I don’t even need a crystal ball.

Property: I like my professor, but the cases are long to read and we don’t spend very much time on them.  Translation – lots of reading with little bang for your buck.  I haven’t quite figured out what is important and what isn’t important in the readings, so I either take copious notes or none at all.  When he calls on people in the class, he goes down the row so you have some sort of head up if he’s coming your way.  

Criminal Law: I cried through the entire first set of readings.  Now, one might want to blame this on my recovering emotional state, but really no one liked those readings.  The readings are over 20 pages each night, and we actually seem to get through most of the material.  There has been a lot of philosophy thus far, which I am really not getting.  There are all these concepts about punishment:  Who to punish, who not to punish, how to punish, etc.  And then they are all linked to utilitarian or retributivist schools of thought.  I definitely have a lot more to say about Crim Law, and will probably make it the subject of its own posting this weekend.

Civil Procedure II:  Last semester, these seemed like the hardest readings. Now they are the easiest.  Maybe just because I am not used to how the other texts are written?  Civil Procedure continues to grow on me, mostly because it is like the latticework that holds all the other issues.  We have started with class action suits - Federal Rule of Civil Procedure #23.  It makes sense, unlike everything else right now, but sometimes it is hard to understand the way the professor asks the questions.  

My goal is to read until my eye sockets swell up and start to bleed this weekend (nice visual huh), but first I am going to take a hot bath and go to one of the student bar association happy hours.  Cheers!

The Movie Recommendation

1964
Send Me No Flowers.
Rock Hudson and Doris Day.
It will make you smile.
I love old movies.

The Sometimes

Sometimes it’s hard for me to be the person that I want to be. Sometimes its hard not to be angry or frustrated or disappointed, but to be forgiving and resilient and happy. Sometimes its hard to continue to view people in a positive light, despite the fact that they turned off the switch. Sometimes it’s hard to write on my blog, when all I want to say is mean and hurtful things, but I don’t want to be one of those people that just uses this very public space to say mean and hurtful things. In fact, I don’t want to be the sort of person that even thinks those mean and hurtful things. Sometimes its hard to be upbeat late at night and early in the morning. Sometimes it’s hard to look to the future instead of dwelling on the past. Sometimes it’s hard not to be able to use the kitchen sink. . . hmmm. . . well that is always hard.

The What Ifs

What if I hadn’t been home today when the hot water unattached itself from under the sink, filling my cabinet with water?  What if I hadn’t known how to fight my way through the spray to turn the water off?  What if I had a better mop to clean up with?  What if my trash can wasn’t filled with water?

I should be reading about The Queen v. Dudley and Stephens for my first criminal law class tomorrow.  

The Breaking and the Mending

Mending

A giant hand inside my chest
Stretches out and takes
My heart within its mighty grasp
And squeezes till it breaks.

A gentle hand inside my chest,
With mending tape and glue
Patches up my heart until
It’s almost good as new.

I ought to know by now that
Broken hearts will heal again.
But while I wait for glue and tape,
The Pain!
The Pain!
The Pain!

-By Judith Viorst

Somewhere between shopping for engagement rings and a rousing round of rummikub, Mike decided that the love he has for me is not the kind that lasts for a lifetime. By the way, that’s gentleman speak for, “Gee it turns out that there’s something I really don’t like about you, but I’m way to polite to say what.” I hold my heart in my hands and begin the steps of mending.

The Lines

FRD was here and gone before I even had time to catch my breath. Mike and I took him to Universal Studios and Islands of Adventure on a one day pass. It was insane and by 3:00 all of our feet were dragging. However, we were incredibly fortunate with the lines. We went on a Wednesday. By 12:00 we had ridden everything worth riding at Islands of Adventure with virtually no waiting. Seriously, the longest part of the wait was walking to the front of the line. We kept looking at all the aisles and walking past them and kept wondering if the lines actually got that long. At noon, we balked at a 30 minute wait to ride Spiderman a second time and headed over to Universal Studios. There we were on and off the Mummy and Twister with no wait for either one. When we went to MIB, there was a wait of about 30 minutes. We almost walked away, but somebody pointed out that they had a singles line. We got in the singles line and were all on the first ride with yet again no wait. I kept marveling at our luck and both FRD and Forrest thought I was jinxing it, but it actually held through the whole afternoon. We went back to Islands of Adventure and found the singles line at Spiderman and actually rode it several more times. I have NEVER had a theme park adventure like this. The longest wait of the entire day was when FRD and I stood in line for almost 20 minutes to ride in the FRONT of the dueling dragon rollercoaster for our last ride. It was unbelievable.