Overlap

I feel like I’ve been up to my ears in Evidence this week. No matter how much reading I do, I always seem to have more. Part of that is because we adjusted the schedule and met an extra time this week, and part of it is because condensing a twelve week course into four and a half weeks makes some pretty dense reading necessary.

Amidst all that reading we took a little foray into some fundamentals of criminal procedure (shorthand: crim pro). There was an excellent comment in the reading about constitutional limits placed on lawmakers:

“Yet, presumably, a state could not create a statute [that says]: All persons within 100 yards of an individual killed by force or violence shall be guilty of murder. It shall be an affirmative defense that the person did not commit the homicide.” Extracts from Fundamental Criminal Procedure, 2014 Edition, Fredric I. Lederer, William and Mary Law School.

In other words, Congress can’t say everyone is guilty until proven innocent. The US legal system is built on the principles of innocent until proven guilty and everyone deserves a fair trial. (That, incidentally, is the answer if you ever feel like asking a lawyer how he can defend someone who is probably guilty. The lawyer is there to hold the government to its responsibility and make sure the person gets a fair trial).

Crim pro intersects with Evidence in many other areas. Next, for example, we are studying privileges, which exempt certain people (like spouses or clergy) from testifying in certain circumstances. Of course, Evidence by necessity intersects with all other areas of law.

It’s kind of a fun class for that reason. In my other classes there’s a fictional separation between the subject matter at hand and other areas of law. There have been many times when my professors have responded to questions by saying something like: “That’s a good question. Ask your civil procedure professor” or “That might work if we were in torts, but this is contracts.”

In Evidence you can bring up any area of law you want and it will be applicable. In fact, you can’t get caught up in one area of law or you’ll start forgetting that a type of evidence that seems useless in one area is actually essential in another.

We also have a lot of overlap in Professional Responsibility - with criminal law, of all things. That isn’t because there are huge numbers of criminal lawyers. It’s primarily because my professor is a criminal prosecutor in Newport News and she tells us stories about her cases and clients. It’s not as bad as being in crim law again, mostly because I don’t have to read all the details in written cases. Still, I’m glad it’s only for five weeks and not a whole semester.

On a wilder note, the local animal life is becoming more apparent as we move into summer. This week I saw several rabbits (which looked more like escaped pets than wild animals), I avoided running over a turtle that was crossing Monticello Avenue (I saw it make a surprisingly quick and safe arrival on the other side of the street in my rearview mirror), and I discovered a bird’s nest in the tree outside my front window. And the lightning bugs are out. The first one I saw startled me; it was right by my hand and I thought it was a spark.

Feel free to send me jokes about why the turtle crossed the road. I’d come up with some myself, but I’ll be reading about Evidence.