Hello Everyone,
This week’s Discussion Forum for Week One (Aug 26—31), the first in a series of thirteen to be issued on a regular basis over the course of the semester, concerns whether, viewing yourself as a juror seated on the manslaughter trial of defendant Alexander William Holmes (the character played by actor Martin Sheen in the film introduced at our first class meeting) would have dissented from a jury conviction of the defendant, and what your carefully considered reasons would be, either [1] for your decision to dissent, if you so decide that you would dissent, or [2] otherwise for your decision to concur with other jurors in a manslaughter conviction of the defendant, if you so decide that the defendant was in fact guilty of the charges.
In this, my opening post to this Discussion Forum for Week One, I will provide instructions which you must follow in preparing and contributing your post(s) to this particular Discussion Forum, your first classroom activity to be submitted for a grade.
The required reading assignments, in addition to a required viewing the film clip shown in our first meeting (the 20-minute lifeboat scene from 1975 Columbia Pictures Television movie dramatizing a modernized version of the terrible incident on the high seas recorded in the true 1842 federal district case “United States v. Holmes,” embedded herein again in the course of these instructions), include:
two jury instruction rules based on statutes from a state penal code, specifically, from the California Jury Instructions—Criminal (CALCRIM):
[1] the Rule of Court defining the crime of “murder” @
https://www.justia.com/criminal/docs/calcrim/500/520/and
[2] the Rule of Court defining the defense of “justification” @
https://www.justia.com/criminal/docs/calcrim/500/505/
and, in addition, one example of judicial caselaw precedent, the very real, though very old, decision of a Federal District Court in the jurisdiction of Pennsylvania, the true facts from which were adapted the facts comprising the modernized incident dramatized in the 1975 Columbia Pictures Television movie shown in our first meeting— that is, for purposes of this Discussion Forum, you must also study:
[3] my 11-page edited version of the distinguished American lawyer John William Wallace’s report of that case at the following internal link:
[INSTRUCTOR'S EDIT] “United States v. Holmes,“ 1 Wall. Jr. 1., 26 F.Cas. 360 (E.D. Penn., 1842).pdf