A. Criminal Law and the Criminal Justice system
1. As stated, the first great code of laws was Hammurabi's. Our system fundamentally developed from the Norman system of laws, which greatly influenced the English Common-Law System. Do you know of any other systems that may have influenced our System of Laws? What can you say about them and the way they influenced our own?
2. The Commentaries on the Laws of England by Sir William Blackstone or Blackstone's Commentaries greatly influenced the early development of our system of laws. Do you know of any other books that may also have influenced our system? What can you say about them and their influence?
3. Texas is different from other states because it flies six flags that represent the nations that have had sovereignty over it: one of them is the very Republic of Texas. And Texas was a nation in the rough and rumble western frontier of the United States and had a wry diverse population. As you studied the structure of the Texas Legal System were you able to identify those elements that allowed it to adapt the Common Law English tradition to its own particular needs?
B. The Constitution and Criminal Law
1. Have you ever thought about why we have a Bill of Rights but we do not have a Bill of Obligations of the American Citizen? Why is that?
2. You cannot advocate lawlessness in a speech said in the middle of the street. Yet, it would seem that right now our busiest "street" is the Internet. Should such speech also be banned in the Internet?
3. Suppose that a group of Texans come together and create The Holy Church of the Great Storm and then decide that they will use crack cocaine in their ceremonies in order to see the Great Storm as it forms. How would you be able to identify that the church is a bona fide religion and not simply an attempt to hide behind the freedom of religion in order to use the drug?
4. Why is it that Americans insist so much on the right to privacy and then tell-it-all in a social media venue? What is going on?
C. Criminal Responsibility
1. What do you think would happen in a society in which all moral wrongs would also be crimes? Or, why do you think that not all moral wrongs are crimes?
2. What is it about drug possession that makes it the most punished crime in the U.S.? Is it not a private matter to possess drugs just as it is to choose so many other things? Could it be that it is the possession with intent to distribute that makes it a crime?
3. How can it be that words alone can be a crime? Are words that powerful/damaging?
4. In relation to the need to prove intention: do you think that doing something good with the intent to at an eventual harm should be a crime, for instance: someone who pays for a younger person's college education in order to make that person vulnerable to sexual advances? (e.g., seckingarrangement.com).