CRIMINAL
LAW
SPRING
2010
8.
In the spring of201O,I was enrolled
in
Professor Stephen
E.
Henderson's CriminalLaw class.
9.
Our class used as our text, Kaplan, Weisberg and Binder, Criminal Law: Cases andMatenals (6th ed.).
10.
Our class discussed the case
of
People
v.
Goetz.
As
a class, we were told about thenotoriety
of
the case and that the four youths were African-American. Whether theconduct was "reasonable," as per the requirements
of
Goetz'justification defense,was a question
of
fact based on the circumstances. The question that caused the mostcontroversy was whether reasonable entailed an "objective"reasonable person
or
reasonable to Goetz, where the latter takes into account who Goetz was and whatGoetz had undergone to create, in his mind, the notion that the conduct wasreasonable. Although I was not in Professor Connell's class,the classification as to
what happened
in
that respective class when Goetz was decided is similar to the class
I
was in. The fact that the case did not state that the youths were black was integral indetennining the mindset
of
Goetz when one has to apply the"reasonable to Goetz"test.
II
.The Goetz case lasted the full class.
It
sparked question that lasted a significantduration
of
the total class time. I was not offended, and to the best
of
my
knowledge,the students did not take issue with the same facts regarding the same case about theexact same material during the exact same school semester.
CRIMINAL
PROCEDURE
SECTION
B
FALL
2010
12.
In the fall semester 2010, I was enrolled as a student in Professor Connell's CriminalProcedure Section B
dass.
2
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