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nancythedrew · 4 years

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Nancy Drew Lawyer Time: Renee’s Culpability

Some people expressed interest in me using my almost 1 full year of law school knowledge to try to analyze some ND game things from a legal perspective. Obviously, take everything I say with a grain of salt because I am not a lawyer and this is addressing a not real set of facts. This is also for my own benefit because it is much more fun to write about ND games when prepping for an exam than it is using facts from law school study materials.

So without further ado, I attempt to answer the question: Was Nancy correct in saying “While [Renee] may not have meant to cause Bruno’s death, she certainly meant to cause mine when she sealed me up in that crypt”?

OK just some ground rules here: I’m gonna be addressing this based on the Model Penal Code(MPC) which is basically like an advisory text for lawmakers to follow when it comes to creating criminal codes by state. Most states have adopted the MPC in some fashion; I have no idea if Louisiana has or to what degree but for the sake of argument let’s just address this based on the MPC/common law(case rulings)/federal law.

In general, to show that someone is guilty of a crime it must be demonstrated that they possessed both actus reus(action or conduct) and mens rea(guilty mind). Here, we’re looking at two different actions that Renee engaged in: giving Bruno the fake letter saying the crystal skull was a fake and leaving Nancy in the crypt. We’ll address the mens rea for each of those separately as well.

Bruno’s Death - Actus reus

Actus reus is usually broken down into four main elements: voluntary act, social harm, factual causation, and legal causation.

Voluntary act: This threshold is pretty easy to meet. This basically asks whether what the person did was actually something within their control. MPC § 2.01(1) In other words, you’re only gonna not meet this standard if you like had a convulsion or seizure and literally could not control your body’s actions. Here, there is no indication that Renee did not actually will herself to write up the fake letter and give it to Bruno, so she meets the voluntary act requirement.

Social harm: The social harm element looks to the negative consequences that the law is intending to prevent. In this case, we’re talking about the death of a human which laws against homicide are intended to prevent. Here, someone died so the social harm component of a homicide charge has been met.

Factual causation: Under factual causation, we use what is called the “But-For Test” which asks “But for X conduct, would this social harm have come about when it did?” MPC § 2.03(1)(a-b). Essentially, if the defendant hadn’t done what they did, would we still have the same end result? Here, but for Renee creating the fake letter and giving it to Bruno he probably would not have died when he did. Renee could maybe try to argue that at his age a heart attack was likely to happen at pretty much anytime in his life and the timing of the letter and subsequence heart attack were mere coincidence, but I think it would be pretty hard to prove that Renee’s letter didn’t at least somewhat contribute to the heart attack that killed him. Therefore, there is likely factual causation between Renee’s conduct and the social harm.

Legal causation: Legal causation asks whether actual result is not too remote or accidental to have a just bearing on the actor’s liability or on the gravity of the offense. Basically, even if someone technically was a link in the chain that “caused” a social harm, is what they did socially abhorrent enough that we actually want to punish them for it? In this case, Renee could -try- to argue that Bruno’s medical conditions and psychological dependence on the perceived protection he got from the skull were an intervening force that broke the chain of legal causation enough that Renee shouldn’t be held responsible for his death. However, criminal law applies what we also have in tort(personal injury) law which is known as the “Eggshell Plaintiff Rule” or “You take the plaintiff as you find him.” If a plaintiff/victim has a pre-existing medical condition that makes them more sensitive or susceptible to injury, even if the defendant could not have foreseen the condition, the existence of such a condition is not enough to break the chain of causation and absolve the defendant of liability. Therefore, Renee’s conduct will still likely be a legal cause of Bruno’s death.

Bruno’s Death - Mens rea

Mmkay here is where things get dicey. The MPC has four main mental state categories to determine how culpable someone’s mental state is. From most culpable to least culpable: Purposely, knowingly, recklessly, and negligently. Based on what your mental state was when you killed someone will determine the level of homicide you committed. I will address each accordingly.

Purposely - Intentional homicide:

A person is guilty of committing a crime knowingly if “the element involves the nature of his conduct or a result thereof, it is his conscious object to engage in conduct of that nature or to cause such a result.” MPC § 2.02(2)(a). Basically, was Bruno’s death(the result) Renee’s conscious object to cause such a result? Probably not. Assuming we take her at her word that she truly just hoped he’d give her the skull after reading the letter, she probably did not meet the requirement for a purposeful homicide.

Knowingly - Intentional homicide

A person is guilty of committing a crime purposely “if the element involves a result of his conduct, he is aware that it is practically certain that his conduct will cause such a result.” MPC § 2.02(b), For pretty much the same reasons as above, it’s gonna be pretty hard to show that Renee was practically certain that Bruno would literally die as a result of the letter, so her conduct probably does not fall within what is required for a knowing homicide.

Recklessly - Involuntary Manslaughter

A person is guilty of committing a crime recklessly if “he consciously disregards a substantial and unjustifiable risk that the material element exists or will result from his conduct.” MPC § 2.02(2)(c). Again, here, if we take Renee at her word that she truly did not think her conduct posed a risk to Bruno’s life, it’s gonna be fairly difficult to prove a reckless homicide unless there’s maybe facts that suggest Renee knew about Bruno’s health conditions and knew how the letter would affect those. But given the information we have, she probably did not commit reckless homicide.

Negligently - Negligent homicide

A person is guilty of committing a crime negligently if “he should be aware of a substantial and unjustifiable risk that the material element exists or will result from his conduct.” This is where things could go either way. As distinguished from a reckless mental state where the defendant must have actually disregarded a risk, here it just needs to be demonstrated that Renee should have been aware of the risk giving the fake letter to Bruno posed. The state could probably argue that Renee, being his housekeeper, should have been aware of his medical condition and his emotional dependence on the skull and known that the letter would really mess him up. On the other hand, Renee could probably easily argue that at most she would have anticipated that Bruno would’ve been emotionally distraught but that there was not a substantial risk of him literally having a heart attack and dying.

On balance, the issue of Bruno’s death is likely going to hinge on how much the jury believes the resulting heart attack from the letter was a high enough risk that Renee should have been aware of it. My guess is if the state couples both the Bruno and Nancy(we’ll get to that in a second) situations into one case, the jury will likely be sympathetic to Nancy’s testimony and therefore be more willing to find Renee guilty of other crimes.

Nancy’s Almost-Death

Woo hoo let’s talk about inchoate crimes, or essentially crimes that have not fully been realized. In this case, the state will probably argue that Renee attempted a homicide by leaving Nancy locked up in that crypt. Demonstrating an “attempt” has a slightly different mental state and action requirement, since it isn’t a fully completed crime. Here’s the full MPC definition of it and I’ll go through each possible element accordingly:

MPC § 5.01 “(1) Definition of Attempt

A person is guilty of an attempt to commit a crime if, acting with the kind of culpability otherwise required for commission of the crime, he:

(a) purposely engages in conduct which would constitute the crime if the attendant circumstances were as he believes them to be; or

(b) when causing a particular result is an element of the crime, does or omits to do anything with

the purpose of causing or with the belief that it will cause such result without further conduct on his part; or

(c) purposely does or omits to do anything which, under the circumstances as he believes them to be, is an act or omission constituting a substantial step in a course of conduct planned to culminate in his commission of the crime.”

Let’s start with that first mental state requirement: “acting with the kind of culpability otherwise required for commission of the crime.” Here, we need to specify exactly what kind of homicide we’re seeing if Renee attempted. The MPC does not allow people to be held liable for attempted negligent or reckless mens rea crimes(which makes sense. How do you “attempt to” be negligent at something), so it’s gonna have to fall into purposeful or knowing. Here, it seems like it was Renee’s conscious object to cause the result of Nancy sitting in that crypt until she died. Therefore, we’re gonna be looking to see if Renee attempted to commit intentional homicide aka murder.

I was going to address the actus reus elements individually, but the core question all three of them pretty must ask is had the circumstances been as the defendant believed would the social harm have occured? In this case, Nancy was able to escape from the crypt, but Renee did not have knowledge that there was a way to get out of the crypt. Therefore, had the facts been as Renee believed, with Nancy having no way to escape, Renee would have been able to bring about the result(Nancy’s death) that she wanted. Thus, Renee likely met the actus reus requirements of attempted murder.

A quick note on omission: It’s worth nothing that Renee didn’t technically “do” anything. She caught the skull like Nancy wanted her too and then just left; it’s not like she actively poisoned or stabbed someone. But, if you’ll notice, in § 5.01(b-c) it mentions both purposely doing an action as well as “omits to do anything with the purpose of….” Because Renee failed to help Nancy out of the crypt with the purpose of leaving Nancy there to die, she would have still met the actus reus requirement even without “doing” something. Generally, criminal law doesn’t like to hold people criminally responsible for not doing things(though there are some situations where a duty arises and an omission could make you liable), but here the elements requirement the mental state of “purposely” engaging in an omission to lead to a certain result. In other words, you’re only going to be liable for an omission if it was your conscious object that such an omission would lead to a social harm.

So, to wrap up, Renee will probably be found guilty of attempted murder for leaving Nancy in that crypt because her actions and comments (“Bye now, Nancy”) suggest it was her concious object to leave Nancy there to die. Bruno’s death might leave Renee liable for negligent homicide, but it’s going to really depend on how much the jury thinks it would have been reasonable for Renee to have thought Bruno could’ve died based on the letter.

In summary, was Nancy correct in saying, “While [Renee] may not have meant to cause Bruno’s death, she certainly meant to cause mine when she sealed me up in that crypt”? As the Mythbusters would say….plausible.

That was super long, but was actually very helpful for me prepping for my finals. If ya’ll have any other ND-related law analyses you’d be interest in me trying to do(if they relate to Criminal or Property law even better for my sake, but I also could do Contracts or Torts) please shoot them my way! Again, I am not a lawyer, but I have learned some things about the law and thought it’d be interesting to apply them to a medium I love.

#nancy drew #legend of the crystal skull #lawyer time #effort

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aceprosecuties · 7 years

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Idk of you would ever write something like this, but how do you think some of the AA criminals (Acro, Wellington, Iris, etc.) would act upon being released? Like would they try to better themselves, or would they go down a different path?

I haven’t really thought about some of thesevillains, so this is very interesting to think about!

It probably really depends on the individual(generic response, I know). Also itprobably depends on how long they remain in prison based on their crimes.

(under the cut: Acro, Wellington, and Iris, since you mentioned them! If you’re curious about others, let me know and I’ll do them too!)

So, in Acro’s case his killing of Russell Berrysounds like it would be considered second-degree murder, but he would also mostlikely be convicted for the attempted murder of Regina, since his plan wasoriginally for her. Those two things Ithink carry a minimum of 30 years, which would place him at 56 at release. Acro is sort of a special case, however,since he is one of the few murders in the series to openly express any sort ofregret, so I think he would be repentant from the moment of hisconviction. I can actually see him andRegina corresponding, as they forgive each other for what they have done. Acro probably spends a lot of time readingwhile in prison, and I can see him isolating himself from others (as much as hecan, anyway) in order to read and repent.

When he gets out, Regina is the person to meethim and although she offers him a job helping her with the circus (which she stillruns), he declines, saying that he does not feel like he deserves a placethere. Despite his years repenting, hestill doesn’t feel like he is worthy of going near that place again, andinstead works at a bookshop or something, quietly staying away from the publiceye.

Wellington is very different: the murder hecommitted (either second-degree murder or involuntary manslaughter, I believe)was of a law enforcement officer, so he’s probably looking at 25 to life. Add that on top of his aggravated assault onPhoenix is probably at least 30. Butwhile he and Acro could be in prison for the same amount of time, he nevershowed any sort of remorse for what he did. His overt paranoia actually probably increased while he was behind bars;I imagine that he starts believing that some of his former connections want tokill him, and spends his time in prison afraid of everything around him andfreaking out at every little thing. Uponrelease, he either continues this paranoid thinking, leading to him getting alittle apartment and barring the windows/doors up tightly, or he realizes thathe is off the radar. If the latter, Iimagine that he at first tries to assimilate, but he is the type that livedthat rich person lifestyle and loved it; even in prison he would dream of beingable to have money again, and he tries to pull a few cons to get cash like thatagain.

Iris is going to get out much quicker than eitherone of those two, since she didn’t actually kill anyone, but instead was anaccomplice (really, an accomplice to a coverup). She knows that what she did was wrong, andspends her time in prison mourning her sister and repenting. While she knows that Dahlia was not a goodperson, she loved her dearly, and knows that her life’s circumstances were notkind to her. So she has forgiven Dahlia,even if Dahlia never would have forgiven her if she were still alive.

When she is released, she at first goes back toHazakura Temple to Sister Bikini, tearfully expressing remorse and yet beingwelcomed back with open arms. However,she doesn’t spend much time there; the temple actually gives her bad memoriesand she feels as though she no longer really belongs there. She knows she must move on, but she doesn’tknow where to. Bikini gives her as muchmoney and supplies as she can, and Iris catches a train out of town, hoping tofind herself on her journey. She has forso long been identified with her sister and her family and her past; it is timefor her to find out who she is as an individual. She thinks about contacting Phoenix, butdecides not to, as he is also a connection to that past life that she feels shemust let go of.

#ace attorney #acro #ken dingling #richard wellington #iris #sister iris #iris hawthorne #my writings #regina berry #I hope these make sense!#I liked thinking about iris a lot specifically #but yeah I think it all depends on who they are and what they did and stuff!#Anonymous #allie answers

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usnewsaggregator-blog · 7 years

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Will Congress Reform Criminal Intent?

New Post has been published on http://usnewsaggregator.com/will-congress-reform-criminal-intent/

Will Congress Reform Criminal Intent?

If Congress follows through on its plan to take up criminal-justice reform next year, legislators and advocates could wrestle once again with an obscure proposal that would reshape federal criminal laws—that is, if it doesn’t imperil the reform effort first.

A bill drafted by a group of Senate Republicans earlier this year would tweak the mens rea requirement in federal statutes, adding a default rule for juries to find criminal intent for federal offenses that don’t explicitly have an intent standard. (Mens rea is a legal term derived from the phrase “guilty mind” in Latin.) If enacted, federal prosecutors would need to prove a defendant’s state of mind to obtain a conviction for a host of existing crimes. Conservatives and criminal-defense organizations argue the measure is a necessary part of the congressional effort to reform sentencing and incarceration.

Beyond the age of mass incarceration Read more

But some Senate Democrats fear the measure is far too sweeping and could be a back-door attack on federal health and environmental regulations that police corporate behavior. Rhode Island Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, a member of the Judiciary Committee, told me earlier this week that he wouldn’t support a sentencing-reform bill if it included the change to mens rea. “It would turn me into a warrior against it,” he emphasized. Chuck Schumer, the Democratic leader in the Senate, would also oppose such a bill, a spokesman confirmed.

Other Senate Democrats criticized a similar measure that passed the House during the last criminal-justice-reform push, which centered on a sentencing-reform bill. In January 2016, Illinois Senator Dick Durbin, a longtime supporter of reform, said that version of the mens rea proposal “should be called the White Collar Criminal Immunity Act.” (Like Whitehouse, Durbin serves on the Judiciary Committee, which would need to sign off on any mens rea- or sentencing-reform bills.) Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren said in a speech the following month that the House proposal would “make it much harder for the government to prosecute hundreds of corporate crimes—everything from wire fraud to mislabeling prescription drugs.” Negotiations over criminal-justice reform ultimately collapsed that summer as the presidential election entered its final stretch.

But with the campaign over, stakeholders in both parties want to give it another go. A bipartisan group of senators reintroduced a sentencing-reform bill earlier this month that would reduce some drug-related penalties while increasing punishments for certain violent crimes. Groups as disparate as the ACLU, the Heritage Foundation, the NAACP, and the Koch family’s foundations have teamed up in recent years to build a grand coalition for reform. But this unusual display of bipartisanship still hasn’t bridged every ideological gulf, as the brewing battle over mens rea exemplifies.

Whitehouse suggested to me that Koch-affiliated organizations may be interested in mens rea reform—and even criminal-justice reform as a whole—because of Koch Industries’ past run-ins with environmental regulators. Charles and David Koch are influential donors for Republican candidates and help fund a wide array of conservative and libertarian nonprofit groups.

“It’s an open question to what extent the Koch brothers and their operatives, in participating in the sentencing-reform conversations, had in mind all along that at a critical juncture they would try to jam their mens rea proposal into the mix,” he told me. “I would hope that that was not true, but I strongly suspect that it was.”

Mark Holden, Koch Industries’ general counsel and a prominent conservative advocate for reform, rejected that assertion. Whitehouse’s comments “demonstrate an ignorance about our efforts and their longevity,” he said in a statement. “Koch has been working on comprehensive criminal-justice reform—from sentencing to reentry—for well over a decade in a bipartisan manner at the local, state, and federal levels.”

Mens rea captures a simple principle: that a person’s intent when committing a crime should determine the punishment he or she faces for it. In modern practice, legislatures set intent requirements when drafting criminal statutes and juries determine whether defendants acted with the required state of mind to reach a verdict.

Intent standards can vary depending on the crime. Some offenses only require a jury to find the defendant acted negligently or recklessly, for example. Others are known as strict-liability offenses, for which juries can find defendants guilty without weighing their state of mind or intent. The best-known strict-liability crime is statutory rape, but it can also apply to less serious offenses like expired vehicle-identification stickers.

“It doesn’t matter whether you intended it to be expired or not, you’re held liable for it,” Norman Reimer, the executive director of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, told me. “And we accept that because it’s a minor transgression and doesn’t carry significant consequences. But if you start to hold people criminally liable under various statutes and subject them to significant penalties, then I think you get into fundamental due-process issues.”

For other crimes, intent can make a huge difference when weighing how a defendant is punished. Reimer used New York’s homicide laws as an example. “A murder is defined as killing somebody—you know, intentionally killing somebody, obviously without justification,” he explained. “Manslaughter is killing somebody with the intent of causing physical injury. Manslaughter in the second degree is recklessly killing somebody. And criminally negligent homicide is negligently killing somebody.” From negligent homicide through to murder, “the penalties go up dramatically from one to the next.”

Since 2013, Ohio and Michigan have both adopted mens rea-reform bills that added a default intent standard, meaning crimes would only be considered strict-liability offenses if explicitly described as such. But the issue is far more complex at the federal level. Unlike state legislatures, Congress doesn’t compile its criminal provisions into a holistic criminal code. Instead, federal criminal law is composed of a hodgepodge of accumulated statutes. As a result, there’s no definitive list of current criminal offenses under federal law; the lowest estimate is roughly 3,000 crimes, but some experts believe it could be far higher. (The U.S. Code, a distillation of these statutes, is technically not the official law of the United States.)

Mens rea reformers argue this vast statutory medley justifies a default standard instead of a piecemeal approach that specifies intent requirements for some crimes but not others. Earlier this month, Utah Senator and Judiciary Committee member Orrin Hatch reintroduced a bill to do just that. “Rampant and unfair overcriminalization in America calls for criminal-justice reform, which starts with default mens rea legislation,” the Republican said in a statement announcing the bill. “Requiring proof of criminal intent protects individuals from prison time or other criminal penalties for accidental conduct or for activities they didn’t know were wrong.”

Reforming intent standards has broad support from the conservative legal community, part of a broader shift there in favor of criminal-justice reform. “It’s not a huge barrier or hurdle to be proven, but it’s something that should be in there,” Holden told me. “We shouldn’t have people going to prison for things they wouldn’t necessarily know were illegal and had no knowledge or way to find out that they were.” The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Heritage Foundation backed Hatch’s bill, as did conservative senators like Mike Lee and Ted Cruz.

Support also came from criminal-defense organizations, a nontraditional ally for Republicans. Reimer, whose organization supports a default intent standard, framed the issue in moral terms. “The fundamental anchor of our criminal law, the moral anchor of our criminal law, is that people shouldn’t be punished unless they know they’re doing something wrong,” he told me. “That’s my elevator speech. And that’s the problem that we’ve been trying to address for many, many years now.”

However, some Democrats worry that by establishing a default intent standard, Congress would be making it harder for federal prosecutors to bring charges for regulatory offenses that currently lack an intent standard. “[This is] a category in which the public-health and safety concerns are so serious that you set out a criminal penalty as a boundary with the notion that corporations should stand well back from that boundary as part of protecting people from harm, whether it’s chemical emissions or benzene leaks or whatever it is,” Whitehouse explained.

Another notable skeptic is Chuck Grassley, who chairs the Judiciary Committee. During a committee hearing on mens rea in January 2016, he said he would be open to making smaller changes to intent standards. But the Iowa Republican rejected the broad proposal under consideration at the time. “Since strict-liability crimes do not set forth a state of mind, the House bill would change all of them to require that the defendant act ‘knowingly,’” Grassley said. “That would jeopardize public health and safety.” His office didn’t respond to a request for comment on the current bill.

“I completely and totally reject that,” Reimer said when asked about concerns that mens rea reform would help companies evade regulatory charges. He pointed to an NACDL survey of federal environmental laws that found that almost all of them, including the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act, already establish some level of intent for criminal penalties. “I know the Federal Defenders [of New York] now are endorsing it, and they’re certainly not doing it because it’s going to help polluters,” he added.

Both sides cited mens rea as one factor among many that doomed sentencing reform last year. “It all came up rather suddenly, with the world’s fastest hearing being scheduled in Judiciary and sudden declarations of the House that nothing would be done on sentencing reform without mens rea being thrown in,” Whitehouse said.

Holden lamented that the fight cost legislators and advocates momentum on pushing through the overall bill. “By the time things started to get popping again, we were in the presidential primary, which was one of the most unusual ones ever, and there was no room to get anything done,” he told me. Overall, he said, he’s optimistic about criminal-justice reform’s chances in 2018. “I had a lot of good discussions with the White House, senators, and representatives over the past year,” he told me. “And we’re hopeful something happens now, so time will tell.” Both bills have been referred to the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Some Democrats indicated they’d be open to a more limited approach on intent standards. The office of Vermont Senator Patrick Leahy, another Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, said any mens rea reform would need to be narrowly tailored, not comprehensive and retroactive. Whitehouse said he’d be willing to discuss a version that focused on “crimes in which an individual human defendant was the target,” but that other senators hadn’t taken him up on the offer yet.

As for how many of his colleagues would reject a bipartisan sentencing bill with mens rea reform in it, “I haven’t done a whip count on that,” Whitehouse told me. “I doubt very much that I’m alone on this subject, and I think I’d be even less alone if I had the chance to make the case to my caucus if it came down to this.”

Original Article:

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#congress #criminal #intent #reform

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josephquinn · 7 years

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IRAC for law school essays and exams (with examples)

Law school is… different, and so is the approach to answering problem based questions. Forget everything you currently know about answering essay and exam questions and take a read.

What does IRAC stand for?

Issue: identify the issue.

Rule: state the rule/law.

Analysis: discuss the law in respect to the facts.

Conclusion: provide your conclusion.

They say that law school teaches you to think like a lawyer. The IRAC method of answering problem based questions is one method that facilitates this, and more importantly for your time at university, will give you the structure required to write an answer to any question in a problem based essay or exam.

Some examples are at the end of this post.

Don’t be deceived

It looks pretty simple, right? Don’t get me wrong, the idea behind IRAC is as simple as things can get – the difficulty is in the execution.

An easy way to explain IRAC is to talk about the things that are most likely to trip you up when using it.

Don’t write an introduction

We are taught during high school and most university courses to rehash the facts or situation as part of an introduction for any answer we give.

At law school, a problem based question simply doesn’t need one. Instead, just write down the issue as a question or a statement. For example: “the issue in this situation is whether plaintiff’s title to the property is indefeasible.” That’s it – now move on to the rule section.

I remember writing a short introduction in a problem based assignment (which I thought was different to an exam, for some unknown reason) even when the lecturer told us not to! In my defence it was early on in my first year (fine – second half of my first year).

A problem that many law students face is failing to adapt to the academic environment of law school. It takes time to reverse old habits and realise that an introduction is no longer necessary.

Don’t pad your answer

Answers in law school should be concise and relevant – the IRAC method will assist, but you still need to consider everything you write down and query whether its relevant. Fluff and padding will not help your marks and will not make up for the fact that you don’t know what you’re talking about. Save the extra words for those 7,500 and 10,000 word essays!

Being concise is particularly important in exams when you have time limits to separate students into into credit, distinction and high distinction categories. Expressed bluntly, you can’t bullshit your way through a legal question.

This is enforced by lecturers by imposing low word limits. A 3,000 word assignment might sound like a lot before you start but most people will find themselves at the end scrambling to delete words.

Be consice.

Word limits are also used to identify students who understand the most important concepts and reward them for it. You will always get the most marks if you:

can identify the key issues (relevance); and

are able to thoroughly consider the issues for each (being concise).

This might mean you need remove any discussion of minor ancillary issues, even if what you wrote is correct.

For example, a 30 mark essay capped at 1500 words might in fact have 40 marks available, depending on what your response is. This generally gives the lecturers some scope when marking papers. However, you would need to write far more than 1500 words to discuss all the issues to get all those marks, which is obviously not allowed.

Write on point and with precision and you will increase your chances to score full marks.

Don’t revisit your answer in your conclusion

Don’t rewrite your answer in your conclusion section. Your conclusion is essentially a “yes” or “no” response to the issue (eg “the plaintiff’s title to the property is not indefeasible”). Similar to the issue section, limit it to one sentence and spend your effort on the far more important analysis section – this is where all the marks lie.

Be flexible with the rule and analysis sections, and structure your answer to help the reader

The ideal question to answer is one where the various issues you need to discus and explain are entirely separate from one another and your structure is literally: issue; rule; analysis; and conclusion (perhaps repeated three or four times). You might get a few of these in an exam, but unfortunately, they are not in abundance!

Most questions, will have overlapping issues and this is where structure becomes very important. For written essays and assignments you will have time to plan this out properly. In exams, it will come down to practice, so make sure you run through as many practice exams as you can to find out the best structure for any particular question (exam topics are frequently repeated so you can figure out what will be on your exam early).

Where the IRAC method does not work

You might have already picked it up, but the IRAC method works best with problem based questions. If you’ve got a “discuss the the advantages and disadvantages of indefeasibility in property law” kind of question, then first of all I feel genuinely sorry for you, and secondly, you will need to find another way to answer this question.

IRAC answer examples

It’s easier to explain this method if by looking at an example IRAC answer. The below examples are very brief and don’t go into much caselaw detail, but they should suffice for a general example.

I have chosen the first one from criminal law because this is usually taught early on in most degrees. The second is in a different post on exam scripts, and is from a key area in contract law.

The words in [square brackets] or in italics are to indicate [structure] or are just general commentary and would not be included in your answer.

Criminal law IRAC example – Murder/manslaughter

[Exam heading] Murder

[Exam heading] Issue

Did D commit murder?

Can prosecution charge D with murder?

[Exam heading] Law and Analysis

[Exam heading] (a) Mens Rea

(State the law)

(This is the analysis) In this situation, [there is insufficient evidence of intention]

[Exam heading] (b) Actus reus

(State the law)

(This is the analysis) Here, it is clear that D’s actions were voluntary, and that the act caused the death of V.

(Still the analysis) It could be argued that [act] was actually [something else], and therefore should not be considered voluntary. This was argued in [key case], however here, [the other important factor in key case] was not present, which means that any argument from D that actus reus is not made out is unlikely.

(I can’t remember much of crim, but usually an exam question will have a factual scenario that plays on the facts of a key case. For example, in this question there might be something in the facts which requires you to discuss how the “voluntary” act is similar or different to a voluntary act in the key case. Refer to it and make a conclusion. If the chief examiner is particularly cruel, they will blend a factual scenario from two key cases, and you will need to refer to both and make a call on what is more applicable.)

[Exam heading] Conclusion

D unlikely to be charged with murder. While there is sufficient evidence for actus reus, there is no mens rea.

(You will now want to determine whether D can be charged with a lesser office based on a different mens rea. To make the best use of time, refer back to what you have already written in the murder section.

Just as a warning – only refer back to things in the same answer. Sometimes, different questions in an exam booklet will be marked by different people. They might not have time to skip back to a different question to find something you have written.)

[Exam heading] MANSLAUGHTER

[Exam heading] Issue

Can D be charged with manslaughter?

[Exam heading] Law and Analysis

[Exam heading] (a) Mens rea

The mens rea for manslaughter is… (as I said above, it’s been a looooong time since I studied criminal law. I have no idea what elements should go here. Recklessness?? Also, surely law students learn that this is the “fault element” now?)

In this situation… (apply facts)

[Exam heading] (b) Actus reus

The elements for manslaughter are the same as for murder. These have been discussed above and are present in this situation.

[Exam heading] Conclusion

D is likely to be charged with manslaughter as fault and external elements are all present.

(Part of your job is to make life easy for the marker. That’s the great thing about IRAC – it provides an ideal structure to frame your answer around. However, when you don’t need to write much then the structure can feel very forced. If you think your answer is going to look a bit stupid, just put everything in the one paragraph, but make sure you stick to the IRAC structure. See the below paragraph for an example.)

[Alternative manslaughter IRAC section]

(Issue) As murder is unlikely to be found, an alternative charge of manslaughter should be considered. (The following is law and analysis for actus reus) The actus reas for manslaughter is identical to murder, and is therefore present, as discussed above. (Next up, law and analysis for mens rea) However, the mens rea is different. The mens rea for manslaughter is…. [state law, discuss]. (Conclusion) Therefore, it is likely/unlikely that D will be charged with manslaughter.

Contract law IRAC example

In my post on exam scripts you will find an IRAC example for termination of contracts. It’s from one of my old exam scripts and is a little more detailed than the above example for criminal law.

Want some help with a practice exam question?

If you have a practice exam question that you’re working on and you would like a second set of eyes taking a look, email me a copy of the exam and I’ll see if I can work through it. (I won’t look at any current essay questions you’re working on – speak to your class mates about those.)

Cheers!

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