Curriculum Guide · Courses
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Truth, Falsehood, and the Law
Professors J. Collins and J. Stein J.D. Seminar 167 | 1 credit hours This course examines how the law evaluates truth and punishes falsehood. The political cases of Alger Hiss, Richard Nixon, William J. Clinton and Scooter Libby are used to demonstrate the pendulum swing of politics and perjury. In doing so the course takes a close look at the crimes of perjury, false statement, obstruction of justice, and relevant grand jury procedure. It covers the use of torture, the polygraph and other efforts to detect falsity, including the Federal Rules of Evidence. In the civil context it covers fraud and misrepresentation and the remedies the law provides. It covers the Common Law's skeptical assumptions about human nature that the evidentiary Rules reflect. Students will write a paper. Recommended: Prior enrollment in one or more of the following courses: Criminal Law; Evidence. This course meets on seven Saturdays in the second half of the Fall 2012 semester on the following dates: 10/6, 10/13, 10/20, 10/27, 11/3, 11/10, and 11/17.
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