CRIMINAL LAW — Professor Moskovitz

MIDTERM EXAM — Tuesday, October 14, 2003

One Hour

To: My Law Clerk

From: Yul Gofar, Esq.

My client, Dan Dork (D), has been charged with murder of Vic Vance (V). We are now in the middle of trial. The prosecution presented only one witness, Police Officer Connie Copp.(C). I’m thinking of filing a motion asking the judge to dismiss the murder charge on the ground that her testimony would not permit a reasonable jury to find murder. Will the judge grant the motion? Here is Copp’s testimony:

Witnesses at Vic’s Video Store told me that Dork was the person who killed Vic, so I arrested Dork and questioned him. After waiving his Miranda rights, here is what he told me.

He said he was a poor law student short of money. He wanted to see a new action movie video, Lethal Lawyers (LL), and he decided to go to Vic’s Video Store, take the Lethal Lawyers videocassette off the shelf, slip it under his jacket, and walk out without paying the rental fee, which was $5 for 3 days. He planned to watch the movie and return the cassette to the store in 3 days, by putting it in the slot in the store’s door.

At noon on Saturday, he rode his bicycle to the store and went in, but then he couldn’t find Lethal Lawyers. But he saw another videocassette, Amorous Attorneys (AA). He remembered that his classmate Mona (M) had said she wanted to see it. So Dork decided to take that video and sell it to Mona for $20. He slipped Amorous Attorneys under his jacket and began to walk out. Then Vic called out to him, “Hey, where are you going with that video?” Dork ran out the door and Vic followed him. Vic grabbed Dork by the shoulder, but Dork pushed away Vic’s hand. Dork got on his bike and started to ride down the street, but Vic blocked his way. Dork rode his bike right at Vic, going pretty fast, about 25 miles per hour. Dork said, “I assumed Vic would jump out of the way.” Vic did try to jump out of the way, but he had a bad knee that collapsed on him. The bike hit Vic on the head, resulting in a brain injury that killed Vic. Dork said, “I didn’t know about Vic’s bad knee.”

Note: Our jurisdiction follows the common law rules on crimes, as modified by the statutes and cases in Moskovitz, Cases & Problems in Criminal Law.