Assignment Page for Justice, Society, and Law

ASSIGNMENT PAGE FOR JUSTICE, LAW AND SOCIETY COURSE

PRACTICUM #1: MORALITY EXERCISE

Instructions: Either by groups (or individually, if you can’t get in a group), get together and discuss the Justice or Morality involved (using Justice and/or Morality concepts from class, not your own morality), and your agreed-upon position (dissenting opinions allowed). Submit your answers in writing, and also be prepared to stand up and defend your position in a class meeting.

Should children be allowed to sue their parents, say for bad parenting?
Should certain religious beliefs be an excuse or justification for crime?
What age is too young to have sex or get married with an older partner?
Are naïve third parties true accomplices to receiving stolen property?
Why can be done about eyewitness errors that sentence the innocent to prison?
Name an outdated law, and explain why it needs to be discarded.
If a pregnant woman dies and the first trimester baby inside can be incubated to term, but the father wishes the fetus to be buried with the mother, what should authorities do?
What causes the problem of unfounded rape allegations in our society?
Are tax-supported nativity scenes in city parks a violation of church and state?
What property and privacy rights should students have on school campuses in their dorm rooms?
What criminal rights should suspected terrorists have?
Are asset forfeiture laws which seize the fruits and instrumentalities of crime for drug-related offenses unfair?
Is poverty, or "rotten social background" ever a defense, excuse, justification, or mitigation for crime?
Should there be separate schools for students of different racial, ethnic, and sexual orientation?
Suppose a rehabilitation program along spiritual lines like Alcoholics Anonymous was adopted for use across the board as America’s drug treatment program. Is this the things to do, or should a secular, more professional program be used?

PRACTICUM #2: WRITE YOUR APPEAL OUT OF JAIL

Essentially, your job is to write your ticket out of jail. Assume you are incarcerated at Central Penitentiary and that you are acting as a "jailhouse lawyer". Listed below are the facts in your case that led to your current incarceration. You are to write a two (2) page habeas corpus writ. Refer to your book or lecture notes on what constitutes a good habeas corpus writ. In it, you will focus on someway to convince the federal judiciary that your state incarceration is ungrounded because of irregularities if not illegalities in the way your case was handled at the local level. Make your best case by remaining focused on what you think is the most salient issue, and don't just use a "shotgun" pattern in hopes that something will hit. Highest grades go to the ones that are most likely to be successful to "get you out of prison" and focus in on exactly what has the most legal bearing.

Here's some theoretical material about 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 their attorney made tactical errors or didn't take the time to raise an objection at trial. In 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, not just 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).

The facts in your case:

Your name is Quentin Toughguy, and you are a 24-year old black male from the town of Raleigh, NC. You were arrested by an East Carolina Drug Task Force, consisting of six deputies, four municipal police officers, and one SBI agent in a "controlled buy" (reverse sting) operation that took place on Wednesday nite at 11:59 PM on October 20, 1999. You were charged with 1 count of possession, 1 count of possession with intent to deliver, and 1 count of trafficking. The drug you possessed (actually were stupid enough to purchase from the undercover agents) was about 15 grams of marijuana. You were introduced to the agents via one of your friends, Joey Banana, who lives in Rocky Mount. You were "busted" at the time of purchase, and picked up the extra charges because they had you staked out with electronic listening devices (after Joey turned you in as a prospect to them) indicating that you intended to make the purchase to see how good the stuff was before buying more to sell to your friends.

The wait for your trial in Nash County was terrible. The jail over in Nashville wasn't all that great, and the other inmates picked on you (you're only 5'6" and weigh 135 with long hair and blue eyes). You were defended by Ashton Edgecroft, a public defender in Nash County, who didn't really sympathize with you very much (it seemed he didn't care for drug cases). He tried to convince you to waive your right to a jury trial and accept a plea bargain for 1 year in Central Pen on all the charges. You held out for a jury trial, and surprisingly, it didn't take long to put one together. An all-white jury of Nash county residents convicted you to 2 years on all the charges, based on what seemed like strong testimony against you by the undercover agents (who blew their cover to testify against you) and the high-quality recordings they had of your conversations, bragging about how you were beating the system. While the state also presented scientific evidence verifying that the substances you purchased were marijuana, you were never able to verify this yourself via your own scientific testing. Nor were you able to call any character witnesses on your behalf since you were told this would come up in your pre-sentence investigation report. However, you had never been in trouble with the law before. The only person you were able to get a hold of during your pretrial detention was a local criminal justice professor at Nash Community College, and during a couple of phone calls you had with him from the county jail, he implied that you were being "railroaded". The jury only took 5 minutes to return an unanimous verdict of guilty.

Good luck in writing your appeal. Assume you are given no supplies or any other assistance by the employees of Central Penitentiary. Smuggle a copy of your appeal out to me by the assigned deadline. Make it look like something smuggled out of prison, as you get a small number of extra points for that..

PRACTICUM #3: MULTIMEDIA SENTENCING EXERCISE

Instructions: Individually, visit the following webpage - http://faculty.ncwc.edu/toconnor/111/practicumthree.htm - and work thru the cases one-by-one (links to the next case are located at the bottom of each page). You'll need to be at a computer with speakers to hear the video. Each case has its own worksheet. You are to printout each worksheet, fill them out the best you can by incorporating the ideas of sentencing and punishment you've learned in this class, staple them together, and turn them in with your name on them. It's better to be more detailed than less detailed on this assignment, and of course, always justify your dispositions.

PRACTICUM #4: YOU ARE THE WARDEN

Essentially, your job is to write a one-page essay containing a list of programs and services consistent with the punishment philosophy and facts given below. For your convenience, I've provided a list of programs and services. Do not simply justify your choices by logic or argument, but demonstrate a knowledge of programs that work and don't work. Be selective and realize you can't choose to do everything on the list provided. Don't make up programs of your own unless I have given you personal permission to do so. Work alone, and not in groups.

List of Programs and Services:
1. Mandatory prison education (completion of HS, GED, or ABE)
2. Vocational training (carpentry, welding, electronics, food service, landscaping, etc.)
3. Job readiness training (how to fill out a job application, behave in an interview, etc.)
4. Drug and alcohol treatment (abstinence-based, harm reduction, or anything in-between)
5. Self-help treatment (Alcoholics Anonymous, Narcotics Anonymous, or similar groups)
6. Psychological testing and counseling (to determine need for mental health services)
7. Psychiatric counseling (physician care for those with mental illnesses)
8. Psychotropic medication (pharmacy/drug care for those with mental illnesses)
9. Group counseling (therapies such as transactional analysis, etc.)
10. Token economy (rewards, awards, or extended privileges for good conduct)
11. Therapeutic community (arranging prison environment to resemble street businesses)
12. Agricultural labor (work on farm, producing beef, swine, milk, and vegetables)
13. Industrial labor (work on mini-factories making license plates, furniture, etc.)
14. Road labor (work on highways picking up trash, clearing brush, etc.)
15. Leisure time activities (intramural sports, boxing, weightlifting, rodeos, etc.)

Scenario (Facts): You are a fairly well-known reformist and liberal warden of a maximum security state prison. In fact, your fifteen-year reign at Townville State Prison has been marked by no escapes, no riots, few incidents, and good morale. You are famous. Books, articles, newspapers, and TV shows have reported on how well-run your prison is, and how successful you seem to be at rehabilitating inmates. However, a new conservative political party has won the elections, and every one of them -- the governor, the legislature, judges, and the director of statewide corrections -- is out to make you change your ways. They are forcing you, budgetary and politically, to cut back on what they consider as too many "amenities" you provide the inmates. They are forcing you to turn your prison into a place where inmates feel punished for their crimes. Assuming you have always provided the full range of services above, and are faced with insurmountable pressure to make cuts, what programs and services do you keep, and why?

Last updated: 01/06/04
Syllabus for JUS 111

ASSIGNMENT PAGE FOR JUSTICE, LAW AND SOCIETY COURSE
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