Seventh Circuit Week in Review: A Good Week for Defendants

The Seventh Circuit had two new opinions in criminal cases last week, both of which delivered partial wins to the defendant.  In United States v. Colon (No. 07-3929), the defendant was arrested after purchasing cocaine from two sellers, Saucedo and Rodriguez, who happened to be under police surveillance at the time.  Colon was then charged and ultimately convicted of (1) possessing cocaine with intent to distribute, (2) conspiring with Saucedo and Rodriguez to distribute cocaine, and (3) aiding and abetting the conspiracy.  However, the Seventh Circuit (per Judge Posner) ultimately found that the evidence did not support convictions on the latter two charges. 

Criminal law students (at least my criminal law students) will immediately recognize the basic legal issue: when does a buyer-seller relationship give rise to conspiracy and complicity liability? 

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Marquette Has No Place on the New Moss Law School Rankings (Thankfully)

My former colleague Scott Moss (now teaching at Colorado Law) recently posted his Moss Law School Rankings.  Harvard and Yale took the top spots, but you may be surprised by the remainder of the top 10.  

#1: Harvard (7 points)
#2: Yale (4 points)
#3: Tulane (3 points)
#4: NYU (2 points)
#5: Georgetown (2 points) 
#5: Cincinnati (2 points) 
#5: Rutgers (2 points) 
#5: Pepperdine (2 points) 
#5: Louisiana State (2 points) 
#10: Fordham (1 point)
#10: Washington & Lee (1 point)

After the list, Scott explains his methodology.

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On Testing Legal Skills

Since we’re all in the middle of finals right now, I thought I would share a quick problem, an incongruous message, that’s been bothering me.

Raise your hand if you’ve heard a law professor say something like, “No matter how well you think you know the rule, read it again every time you need to use it.” Almost all of you. Now keep it up if you’ve heard this from more than one professor. Still almost all of you. I agree that this is very good advice; rules change, subtleties escape us on first readings, and sometimes our memory is just wrong.

Now, raise your hand if you’ve heard a law professor explain a test like, “Although this is open book, you won’t have time to look up the rules. You need to know them very well yourself and just use the materials for the few you don’t know.” That’s almost the very definition of how an open-book exam is usually structured.

I’m not really sure the two are compatible.

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