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Advanced Criminal Law

This class will provide students with a thorough theoretical and practical understanding of doctrines and concepts that regularly arise in criminal law cases.  These include: intention; recklessness; negligence and strict liability; causation; inchoate liability; complicity; duress and necessity; and intoxication.  We will also examine some basic procedural issues.  At various instances, we will look at how other common law jurisdictions deal with a concept or doctrine.  Students will be required to write two short papers.  There is no final exam.  This is an S/U only course.

Behavioral Law and Economics

This interdisciplinary seminar critically examines the “rational actor” model of legal decision making (proposed by classical economic theorists) in light of the work of social and cognitive psychology.  This course will examine cutting-edge empirical and experimental research and will challenge the descriptive assumptions that underlie legal doctrine in a variety of areas, including criminal law, contracts, torts, corporate law, administrative law, and the rules of evidence and procedure. 

Topics include, but are not limited to: (1) how moral and social norms interact with legal rules to influence behavior (and whether they should); (2) how cognitive biases affect a party’s ability to bargain efficiently for goods; (3) the psychological factors that guide decisions regarding whether and how much to punish wrongdoers; (4) the power that group dynamics exert on board members in corporate decision making; and (5) whether the traditional “law and economics” approach to tort law fits with psychological research on risk.  Grades will be based on a presentation and research paper.

Capital Punishment Seminar

This course examines the history of capital punishment in the United States and the substantive and procedural rules that have over time guided and limited its application. Students will become familiar with, inter alia, matters pertaining to the capital sentencing process (such as jury selection and consideration of aggravating and mitigating circumstances), the role of defense counsel, execution methods, and Florida's current and historic use of the death penalty.

Contract Drafting

This course will teach the principles of contemporary commercial drafting, introduce documents typically used in a variety of business transactions and provide an overview of principled contract negotiation techniques. The course will be of particular interest to students pursuing a corporate law career, but the concepts are applicable to any transactional practice and will even be useful to litigators.

Students will be exposed to:

1) The business purpose of major contract concepts
2) Translating the business deal into contract concepts
3) Drafting each of a contract’s parts
4) Techniques for principled negotiation (win-win negotiation)
Practical examples will help students understand the importance of drafting with clarity and without ambiguity, how to work through the formal drafting process and how to review and comment on contracts. Students will participate in several multi-phase drafting exercises and mock negotiations.

Criminal Procedure: Adjudication

An examination of selected federal constitutional constraints on the criminal justice adjudicative process. Topics addressed include the right to counsel and to assistance of counsel, rights relating to pretrial procedures, plea bargaining, jury trial and jury selection, rights relating to trial, double jeopardy, sentencing, appeals, and habeas corpus.

Criminal Procedure: Police

An examination of selected federal constitutional constraints on the law enforcement evidence-gathering and investigative process. Emphasis is placed on the Fourth Amendment prohibition against unreasonable searches and seizures, the Fifth Amendment protection against compelled testimony, and the Sixth Amendment right to counsel.

Cross-Examination

Co-requisites: Evidence

Cross examination is a complex and difficult skill to master, but is essential to success in litigation. This skills-based course will focus on the planning and preparation for cross by identifying the nature and goals of cross, practicing case analysis, learning techniques to challenge credibility, dealing with evidentiary issues, studying storytelling during cross, and practicing cross tools and techniques. Lectures will be combined with practice problems and presentations, application and critique, “blind” cross situations, and cross games that sharpen cross skills.

Cyber Law

This is a seminar covering some of the legal issues that have arisen with the growth of the Internet. Topics examined will include e-commerce, intellectual property, crime on the Internet, first amendment, privacy, tort liability, and others. Each of these topics will be explored through the lens of a series of jurisprudential themes: What are the appropriate metaphors for conceptualizing cyberspace? Is there any role for law in regulating speech and conduct in cyberspace, or will social norms suffice? If law has a role in cyberspace, are traditional legal doctrines and categories adequate? If traditional doctrines and categories are inadequate, which legal institutions are the best to implement the changes this new technology requires--courts, legislatures, or administrative agencies?

Evidence

A study of the rules of evidence developed by courts and by legislatures. Topics include competency, examination of witnesses, privilege, relevancy, expert testimony, hearsay rule and its exceptions, judicial notice and presumptions. 

Federal Crimes

Prerequisite: Criminal Law

This seminar will provide an introduction to the unique aspects of federal criminal law, including jurisdiction, enforcement policy, case selection, and the Federal Sentencing Guidelines.  It will also cover offenses relating to narcotics trafficking, firearm regulation, child pornography, and anti-terrorism efforts

Federal Criminal Law

This course will study the substantive criminal law enacted by Congress, focusing on questions of statutory interpretation and federal law enforcement policy raised by prominent federal offenses. Topics to be covered include offenses relating to fraud and political corruption, narcotics and money laundering, organized crime, and false statements and obstruction of justice, and the punishment of convicted offenders pursuant to the Federal Sentencing Guidelines.

Florida Criminal Procedure

Prerequisites: Criminal Law

This course focuses on criminal prosecutions in Florida from initial arrest through post-conviction motions. Students will learn the relevant rules of criminal procedure as well as in depth studies of real cases they may encounter prosecuting or defending criminal cases in Florida. The course will explore ethical issues prosecutors and defense attorneys face in daily practice and issues affecting the criminal justice system on a global scale.

Human Trafficking

Human trafficking represents a troubling side effect of globalization, encompassing forced labor, sex trafficking and the illicit trade in people within and across borders. This course will review and critically assess a diverse literature on the traffic of migrant labor into the United States and the exploitation of U.S. and foreign-born individuals within U.S. borders, with an emphasis on the sociological and legal issues raised by human trafficking. We will consider the blurred lines between immigrant labor exploitation and trafficking, as well as the issues raised involving prostitution and sex trafficking, with due regard for the role of advocacy and the essential lawyering skills of anti-trafficking attorneys. We will draw from a variety of sources, including academic scholarship (articles, books, etc.), domestic and international laws, governmental and non-governmental reports, transcripts from recent federal and state cases, media articles and videos. 

Jury Selection

Recommended Prerequisites: Evidence and Criminal Procedure

This course is designed to introduce prospective litigators to the elements of jury selection. It will cover the different methods by which juries are chosen in the State and Federal Courts, and how to voir dire prospective  jurors. It will also cover the different thought processes in picking jurors as a criminal prosecutor or defense lawyer, a tort/personal injury attorney (plaintiff and defense), and a commercial litigator.  The law governing jury selection will also be covered as well as (time permitting) selecting jurors in death penalty cases, jury psychologists, and juror questionnaires.

There will be actual participation in selecting juries. Attendance is required and there will be additional assignments, involving research and writing.

Juvenile Justice: Skills Practice

Prerequisite/Co-requisite: Evidence

This 3 credit hour course teaches how Florida’s legal system deals with children who allegedly commit acts that would be criminal offenses if committed by adults. The course will teach and develop the practice skills essential for the future practice of juvenile law. Additionally, students will have opportunities to observe Florida’s juvenile courts in action and to hear and interact with judges, juvenile probation officers, Assistant State Attorneys; Assistant Public Defenders, and others who have special knowledge and skills in the area of Florida’s juvenile law and practice. Further, we will discuss issues such as “Direct Filing”; Competency; Collateral consequences of involvement in Florida’s juvenile law system and reforms.

Postconviction Remedies

This class explores both state and federal postconviction mechanisms for challenging both unlawful detention and convictions and sentences after one has been convicted and completed their direct appeal. Some refer to postconviction as the “red-headed step-child” of the criminal justice system, mostly because it is cumbersome, it seems like it never ends, and practitioners, even the ones who practice it regularly, may not even fully understand it. But state and federal postconviction offers the last avenue of relief for those whose convictions or sentences were obtained in an unconstitutional or unjust manner. Thus, there is a constant struggle between the interests of federalism, bringing closure to criminal cases and guaranteeing fundamental fairness of criminal proceedings. This struggle will be a consistent theme as we examine the reasoning behind why postconviction procedures are what they are and think about how they could be improved.

Course Format and Requirements:
The course will be taught in both classroom and clinical settings. The material will be presented in lectures and discussion; students will also participate in the development of cases brought by Florida inmates seeking postconviction relief, based on DNA testing which the inmates claim will tend to exonerate them. The clinical component of the course will be conducted in collaboration with the Innocence Project, which has established a Florida program in Tallahassee. Students will also take a final exam. Materials will be prepared by the professor.

Scientific Evidence

This course examines the nature of scientific evidence, the recent revolution in the scientific gate-keeping role for judges following the Supreme Court's decision in Daubert, and a variety of controversies regarding the admissibility and weight of particular types of expert testimony. After covering the basic legal tests for the admission of scientific evidence, we will proceed to examine several recurring topics in the law of expert testimony. We will give special attention to questions of scientific identification (common in criminal cases) and questions of scientific proof of causality (common in products liability and toxic tort cases). We will also consider common types of expert evidence from the behavioral sciences, including syndrome evidence and evidence regarding defects in human memory. In each instance we will examine the bases for claims of expertise and survey how these claims have fared in the courts. 

Sentencing Law

Prerequisites: Courses determined by professor

This course examines the ways in which U.S. governments sanction criminal offenders, the goals and rationales of such sanctions, and the limiting role potentially played by the Constitution in their imposition. The sanctions themselves range from the nominally civil sanctions of monetary fines and sex offender registration and community notification to the indisputably criminal sanctions of prison and death. These and other sanctions are examined, providing students with a theoretical and practical understanding of contemporary U.S. crime control strategies.

White Collar Crime

The course will cover a range of topics, including, among  others, corporate criminal liability, mail fraud, securities fraud, tax fraud, and environmental crimes.