Part 1: Crimes Against Property

1. Why do you have to distinguish between two types of property; is not property just property

2. A person is carrying a heavy travel bag and walking down the street when it begins to rain. He places the bag on the hood of a car in order to open it to get his raincoat. Is this an unauthorized use of the car? Ridiculous as it sounds, is it joyriding?

3. What do you think makes the elderly especially vulnerable to the pretenses of a confidence man?

4. Do you think that online auction houses should have a procedure for verifying that the goods being sold through them are not stolen? If so, what could that procedure be?

5. What does the word "presence" mean? Would presence through the phone or the Internet qualify as real presence when someone is accused of extortion?

6. What do you think is the difference between bribery and a bona fide political contribution to a candidate? Is it the case that the difference is only in the name?

7. Imagine an overoptimistic entrepreneur who believes that a certain investment scheme will succeed and sells It to a bunch of people and then it fails and everyone loses his money. Given his overoptimism, did he distort the truth?

8. Restitution is great, but the retailer has gone through some expenses in order to get it. Should the person who wrote the worthless check also be responsible for the retailer's restitution expenses?

9. Identity theft has become an international enterprise, with people from all over the world hacking into American retailers, health systems, and the government in order to get the identity of people that they then sell to third parties. What kind of legal remedies do you think should be put in place to protect us?

10. Do you think that U.S. credit bureaus should have the obligation to notify you immediately whenever some¬one accesses or uses your credit to do something? It just does not seem congruent with the time that your bank can call you and e-mail you whenever someone uses the wrong password to get into your account, but it may take you years to detect that you have become a victim of identity theft. What do you think?

Part 2: White- Collar Crime

1. So, just what is wrong with insider trading? Is it the fact that it creates an uneven playing field while the mar¬ket is supposed to be an even playing field, that is all buyers and sellers have exactly the same information? What w

2. A wealthy guy creates a holding company for all of his diverse assets and registers it in some small Caribbean island in order not to pay U.S. taxes. Is that not tax evasion? Why or why not?

3. Why would you think that tax shelters are not fair?

4. How can the U.S. Government protect you when you buy online from a country in the Far East? Can the arm of U.S. Justice reach all the way there and put on trial someone who is alleged to circumvent consumer protection clauses?

5. So, can a person try to create a monopoly by buying out the competition, or underselling the competition and driving it out of the market? After all, if the market is working the less efficient producers are driven out of the market.

6. What if a university advertises itself as the best in the region and it is the only one. What would make it be false advertising?

7. What if someone buys an illegal drug on the street and it was adulterated in a foreign country and transported into the state where the purchase occurred? Should the buyer in this case be protected even if the drug is illegal?
8. Some well-reputed food corporation adds a well-known logo to the container of all its products. And a for¬eign corporation imports to the U.S. some competing food products and puts on their container a logo that reminds the consumer of the well-reputed corporation. Is that misbranding? Remember the way you buy, you walk down the aisle, recognize what you need, and put it in your cart. You do it this way because you have become familiar with the product and feel no need to check it over every time you buy.

9. A plastic surgeon advertises his "lipos" as the best and safest in San Antonio. Is that puffery, or is the "safest" claim worth researching to see if it is more than puffery? Why?

10. What does the word "scheme" mean to you? And what schemes would you consider criminal?

11. Does "reckless indifference to the truth" simply mean that the person knew that the statement was unprovable or false?

Part 3: Crime Against the Public

1. You are waiting for a traffic light to change to green when a car drives up next to yours. The guy driving it has a boom system on so loud that the low frequencies stimulate your inner ear and your chest reverberates. You actually begin to feel nausea. Can this guy be accused of disorderly conduct? Why?

2. Suppose that the police of a certain city want to detain someone but cannot quite find the reason for it so the guy is detained under the pretext that "He simulated to be intoxicated." Is something like that possible? What do you think about the "simulated" clause? Don't you think it gives the police too much discretion?

3. Despite the argument that anti-loitering statutes are an ". . . attempt to prevent Latinos from moving into certain areas . . ." Don't you think it is good to keep them because they force Latinos to complete their high school education and become trained to do better jobs?

4. Are there situations in which the public peace needs to be disturbed because it actually is a peace based on the denial of rights to certain segments of the population, as it used to be here in Texas when African Americans could not enroll in such places as Texas A&M at College Station but only at Prairie View A&M?

5. Suppose you hate the statue of a guy who made his money from buying and selling slaves in the Old South.

6. Could videotaping you urinating on the statute, at night and unseen by anyone, be considered as speech? Can any meaningful human expression be considered as speech?

7. How about a person who washes your car's windshield at a red light and then stretches his had to see if you give him something? Would you accuse him of aggressive panhandling?

8. Do we really need two categories of traffic violations, moving and non-moving? Why?

9. Breathalyzers, like any other diagnostic instrument, have a rate of false positives. This means that the Breathalyzer can return a positive result on someone who is not DUI/DWI. Given that, should they continue to be used?

10. What if an exhibitionist event occurs at a rock concert and it is part of the performance as in Miley Cyrus Bangerz Tour? Is that not an offense? What do you think?

11. Some have argued that prostitution should not be outlawed because it does serve a social purpose, it brings relief from sexual tensions to those who avail themselves of it. What do you think?

12. Can you figure out how adultery and sodomy are harmful to society? What is the harm and how do they bring it about?