Movie clips

There is something to be said for using movie clips in class. It's a fun way to learn. But I think the last time I remember using a movie clip in class for a legitimate reason was in high school. And the word legitimate is pushing it. Yet my Criminal Law professor effectively used movie clips to help us learn. Another way law school = high school. We are learning about homicide. We watched about five minutes of Goodfellas, during which three homicides or potential homicides took place. That's pretty light for that particular movie. My professor asked us to use the fact patterns from the clips to determine whether they should be charged for murder or manslaughter and what degree they should be charged with. We all had a good time convicting movie stars of murder and arguing about premeditation, malice aforethought and all types of Law and Order words. The entire time we had two potential students sitting in on class. They must have been thinking "This is awesome!" I would love for them to sit in on a Contracts class and hear their inner monologue after that. Probably more along the lines of "I wonder if I would be enjoying life more at the moment if I stabbed myself in the hand with a pen."

Today I went to my Torts professor's office hours. He talked to me about how he found a mistake in the transcription of one of Thomas Jefferson's letters which changed the meaning, and that this particular sentece was important in the history of patent law. Hey man, whatever gets your going in the morning. I just went to talk with him in general about torts, but somehow it came out that I disagree with about 60% of the decisions we read. He was astounded. I probably shouldn't have said that. He's probably not prone to liking me as it is (read: he clerked for Justices Scalia and Kennedy (read: he's a huge conservative)) (yeah I just used double parentheses, what of it??), and the fact that I just told him the subject he teaches is about 60% full of crap is not likely to endear me to him any further. I hope he's the kind of teacher who doesn't care about your opinion as long as you can back it up well. Because I'm going to write that almost no one is liable for anything ever. I look at torts as the area of law where people who can't take responsibilty for themselves gain a legal advantage. Though there are some cool cases-take a defense of property case we read for today. This guy knows that people have been breaking into a house he owns where he just stores things. So he sets up a shotgun trap at leg level so anyone who opens the door will get shot in the legs. Sure enough a burglar comes in and gets shot in the knees. He gets a $50 fine and probation or something like that for burglary, and he sues the owner of the house and gets $35,ooo in damages for battery. When asked to comment on the outcome the owner said "Next time I'll aim it higher."