You've seen the grand adventure of A Stellar Wild. You've been through the sphincter-clenching crucible of Confessions of ADICK. Now, Steemit, I am pleased to bring you the next riveting serial by Honest Andy...
Alright folks! It's been a long, hard week, but I finally have enough time to drop my first installment. I'm going to have to follow this tomorrow with the second installment, but we'll get there.
It's been an extreme adjustment to ramp up into law school mode, simply by virtue of the sheer volume of reading I have to do every night. I've got about 100 pages on average, and that's to say nothing of having to retain all that information some way. Then there's the case briefs, which I'll give you a taste of today. But! Let's not waste any more time!
Legal Research and Writing
The first week of class involved discussing what a legal memorandum looks like. Specifically, the focus was on understanding its purpose. While there are a number of different ways to format a legal memo, ultimately it's designed to inform you or another attorney as to the issue at hand in a complaint, and what the facts of the case mean when that rule is applied.
Let's take the example that is provided in my text to illustrate:
Mr. Cartwright comes to your law firm to challenge a red light ticket he received. On the afternoon of August 6th, Mr. Cartwright was on his way to the drug store to run an errand. He borrowed his neighbor's Segway, as he had injured his ankle and was unable to walk, and he did not have any other means of transportation. He traveled through the intersection of Birch St. and Montgomery Rd. while the traffic signal was red for his lane of travel. He was pulled over by the Officer MacDuff of the Montgomery Police Department and issued a citation for violating 16 Alassippi Gen. Stat. § 2345.
Now let's examine the statute in question:
"Anyone traveling on or in a vehicle such as an automobile on public streets shall stop at intersections where a steady beam of red light signals that traffic in the direction being traveled is not allowed. When the beam turns green, the vehicular traveler may proceed."
16 Alassippi Gen. Stat. § 2345 (2011).
The purpose of the memo, then, would be the evaluate the facts of the case against the statute in question to determine whether or not you, as Mr. Cartwright's attorney, have a case that could result in a favorable disposition to your client. This seems pretty straight forward: did he run the red light or not? Well, according to the facts presented by your client, he did. There's no dispute that he went through the red light. But is that the only element that needs to be fulfilled for your client to be liable for the ticket?
Take another look at the statute:
Anyone traveling on or in a vehicle such as an automobile...
Well, is a Segway considered a vehicle? Whether or not you might consider it to be in your opinion, the question is whether or not your client has a case to dismiss the citation. So, since the part of the statute about traveling through a red light is not in question, the only other portion of the statute that could be addressed in favor of your client would be whether or not a Segway is considered a vehicle and, thus, whether or not it places your client under the scope of the statute cited. This is where legal analysis gets both interesting and exceptionally tedious. How do you figure out if the law has made a ruling that applies to your case? You research cases, to see if prior case law can offer you some sort of analogy to your own case that you can use.
Before we get there, let's cover a couple of key concepts that will relate to your legal analysis:
- Precedent - a precedent is simply a judicial opinion, applying the facts of a case to the rule of law appropriate to it (e.g., a court's order and reasoning in its judgment regarding an appeal of a murder conviction). Case law is the source of precedent when it comes to figuring out how a court will decide; simply put, it's the body of legal opinion formed out of prior judicial opinions.
- Stare decisis - A Latin phrase that means "to stand by things decided," it is a key principle in American jurisprudence. Courts will rarely rule against precedent if the case before them is substantially similar to a prior case. Doing so opens the door for a lower court's decision to be overturned by a higher court (judicial hierarchy is something I'll cover in Civil Procedure) In this way, the judicial system promotes stability and predictability in the application of law.
- Rules of Law - A rule of law is simply a legal rule established by an authoritative body that governs conduct. To think of it in plainer terms, the definition of any crime or civil claim is a rule of law. So, when you say that, according to the Alabama Code Title 13A, someone commits "assault in the third degree if, with intent to cause physical injury to another person, he causes physical injury to any person," you're quoting a rule of law. These can be tricky, as some rules (like third-degree assault) are explicit, while others are implicit, as you'll find out through this exercise.
So, now that we have those two concepts firmly in our mind, let's consider two cases that may have some bearing on yours.
First, let's consider the Vreeland case. Without quoting the entire decision, suffice it to say that Ms. Vreeland used her son's toy scooter to make her way across an intersection to buy something from the convenience store. She was cited under the same statute as Mr. Cartwright. In that case as in yours, the defendant argued that the statute should not apply to her as she was not on or in a vehicle when she was cited. The court agreed, reasoning that, although she did travel across the intersection, she was on a toy scooter that was not capable of traveling fast enough to cause a hazard to other vehicles and was not heavy enough to cause any significant damage in the event of a collision.
Second, let's consider the Monroe case. Mr. Monroe was riding his moped and stopped at an intersection, where his motor died. Not wanting to hold up traffic, he pushed his moped through the intersection through the red light. He was cited under the red light statute. Citing the Vreeland case, the defendant argued that he wasn't on a vehicle when he was cited. Unlike Vreeland, the court disagreed. It argued that, unlike Vreeland, Mr. Monroe's conveyance was capable of traveling at high enough speeds to be a hazard (given at 15 mph at top speed) and was heavy enough (100 lbs.) to cause serious damage to another vehicle in the event of a collision. The court also stipulated one other key element: despite the fact it was not moving under its own power when he was cited, the moped was capable of being self-propelled.
Based on the previous rulings, is there anything you can use to make a determination about your client's case? Well, we've already identified the issue we're trying to address: whether a Segway is a vehicle. For the purpose of the exercise, the Segway in question is self-propelled, is capable of traveling up to 12.5 mph, and weighs 105 lbs. What do the previous cases offer that can shed some insight into what you're trying to figure out?
In Vreeland, the court dismissed the citation because the toy scooter she used was not capable of moving fast enough to be a hazard, and it wasn't heavy enough to cause significant damage in the event of a collision, and thus it did not qualify as a vehicle for the purpose of the statute. In the Monroe case, they argued that the defendant's moped was both fast enough and heavy enough to be considered a vehicle, while adding the additional qualifier that it was self-propelled.
Based on these previous rulings, can you begin to see the implied rule the court used to reach its decision in Monroe? Because Monroe directly references Vreeland, you can draw parallels. Using this analogical reasoning, you can eventually arrive at what you best understand the court's implicit rule to be. Since you know the court's reasoning for Vreeland's dismissal and Monroe's affirmation, you could state the court's implicit rule of law like so:
A vehicle, as referenced in the red-light statute: (a) is self-propelled or capable of being self-propelled, (b) can travel at a rate of speed that creates a potential hazard for other vehicles, and (c) is heavy enough so as to cause significant damage in the event of a collision
Now that you have the rule of law that has bearing on the issue you're trying to decide, you can compare the facts of your case to the rule. You know that the Segway Mr. Carwright was using was self-propelled, could travel 12.5mph, and weighed 105 lbs. In the Monroe ruling, the court decided that Monroe's moped satisfied all the elements necessary for it to be considered a vehicle under law. Like Monroe's moped, your client's Segway satisfies all the elements necessary for it to be considered a vehicle under the law.
That wraps up Legal Research and Writing. Part 2 is going to cover Civil Procedure, where we get into the meat and potatoes of how courts function in the federal system for civil litigation, and the rules that govern how cases are brought to the court and move through the system!
You can also find me in the Fiction Workshop on PALnet:
