Criminal Law

I was running late. Where is room 206? This place is familiar—it is the law school after all. Yet, something is wrong. Where the hell is room 206? I’m late! The test started 20 minutes ago!
This was my first law school related nightmare. It was not a good a good sign for the day to come.

I just finished my Criminal Law exam. All I can say is that I certainly helped the curve. I am a giving person. I want to help my fellow students because I care. Therefore, I decided to go ahead and screw up the four-credit class’ exam so that I can raise the curve for everyone else.

The exam was that bad. I already knew that I was not cut out to be a prosecutor or a defense attorney. I know criminal law generally and I am pretty good at statutory interpretation. What I could not wrap my head around was the common law of criminal law. What’s worse, we did not spend much time in class discussing the rules but instead looked at focused on theory and international versions of criminal law.

The exam was multiple choice and two issue spotters. I was going to regulate my time, but I arrived at the 75 minute mark (my time limit for the first section) with 10 multiple choice questions left. I therefore faced a dilemma: should I finish the multiple-choice or go on to the essay? I choose to finish the multiple-choice. I calculated that I am a fairly good writer, especially under pressure. Further, the multiple-choice was likely to be the curve-determinate, so it needed to be finished. However, the consequence of that decision was that I was not able to fully cover all the issues in each issue spotter. Finally, the time constraints forced me write, “I see the felony-murder issue here, but I do not have time to fully explore the issue.” And, TIME!

I actually respect and appreciate my crim law professor. He is a great guy and one who really knows what he’s talking about. The problem is entirely on my end. I simply do not think very well in the criminal law framework.

Who knows? Maybe I did better than I thought I did. I can always hope for that…