Curriculum Guide · Courses

Professor MacGregor

J.D. Practicum 1109 | 4 credit hours

This course will teach students the skills associated with a successful federal criminal investigation and prosecution, using the substantive framework of criminal statutes involving extraterritorial jurisdiction within the portfolio of DOJ’s Human Rights and Special Prosecutions (HRSP) section, within the Criminal Division. HRSP investigates and prosecutes human rights offenses, large-scale alien smuggling, and federal felonies occurring within US extraterritorial jurisdiction. Specifically, the class will explore the steps of a federal criminal investigation including but not limited to, coordination with law enforcement, intelligence collection, overseas evidence gathering, surveillance, witness statements, and investigative tools through court process and through administrative authority. The class will discuss the process of transforming evidence into a viable prosecution, and the challenges that building a federal criminal case presents. This discussion will engage with topics such as the role of the federal prosecutor, discovery obligations, grand jury uses and limitations, strategies for selecting charging mechanisms, and parallel civil and administrative proceedings that may affect prosecutorial discretion. The class will also examine procedural phases of a federal criminal case including charging, pleas, trial, sentencing, and post-sentencing relief.

Prerequisite: Criminal Justice (or the equivalent Democracy and Coercion) or Criminal Procedure. Students must complete the required first-year program prior to enrolling in this course (part-time and interdivisional transfer students may enroll prior to completing Property, or their first-year elective).

Students may not receive credit for this class and the practicum class Federal Fraud Prosecution: Theory and Practice.
Students may not concurrently enroll in this practicum and an externship or a clinic (except Street Law) or another practicum course.

Students who wish to receive credit for the Externship Seminar and a practicum course that has the same field placement may do so only if: (1) the practicum course is taken in a semester following the Externship Seminar; and (2) the student receives permission from the Assistant or the Associate Dean for Clinical Programs. To receive such permission, the student must explain in writing how the practicum course field work would serve substantially different learning goals than did their externship field placement.

THIS IS A PRACTICUM COURSE.

This is a 4 credit course. Two credits will be awarded for the 2-hour weekly seminar and 2 credits for approximately 10 hours of supervised work per week, for a minimum of 11 weeks, to be scheduled with the faculty. The supervised work must be completed during normal business hours. The seminar portion will be graded. The 2 credits of supervised work is mandatory pass/fail and counts toward the 7 credit pass/fail limit. Students will be allowed to take another course pass/fail in the same semester as the supervised work.

The Department of Justice will require students to submit to a security/background check. Because this check will take, at a minimum, six weeks, all students who are enrolled in the class must confirm their intent to remain enrolled by emailing Professor MacGregor (glenna.macgregor@usdoj.gov) by 9:00 a.m. on Monday, October 1, 2012. Enrolled students will be required to fill out and submit the required paperwork by Friday, October 12, 2012. This time constraint means that it is unlikely that any student will be taken off the wait list after the add/drop period for the Fall 2012 semester. A student may withdraw from the course ONLY with permission from the professor. Permission will be granted only where remaining enrolled in the course would cause significant hardship to the student. The Department of Justice also requires that, once students receive their security/background clearance, they attend an orientation session.

Students who enroll in this course will be automatically enrolled in both the seminar and practicum components and may not take either component separately. A student wishing to withdraw from the course will be withdrawn from both the seminar and field work components.