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arandur
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Interests:
1. University of Virginia ($$)
2. Harvard
3. Yale
4. University of Chicago ($$)
5. Columbia University
6. University of Michigan
7. Penn Law ($)
8. Duke University ($$)
9. NYU
10. Georgetown ($$)
11. Univ. of Texas at Austin ($$)
12. Northwestern University ($$)
13. Washington and Lee ($$$)
14. Vanderbilt University ($$)
15. William & Mary ($$)
Stats:
Accepted: 12
Waitlisted: 1
Rejected: 2
Top 5: 2
Top 10: 4
Top 15: 3
Message: message meEmail: email me
Member Since:
7/17/2005
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| Today I was called on in class (a la Socratic method) for the first time . . . and the second time! I was perfectly prepared for the cold call in Contracts, but not so much (at all) for Civil Procedure.
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| This is just a quick update to say that if you are reading this and haven't heard from me in a while, I'm not ignoring you. I've simply been too busy to call/e-mail you. I have one day off a week and it's hard to fit everything in on Sundays--especially since I still have unpacking to do. And during the week, given the choice between adding another 30min. to my 4-5 hours of sleep/night and writing an e-mail, I am prone to choose the more important, less fun option of sleeping.
I'm still here. I haven't forgotten you. Think of me when you're curling up in bed for your 6+ hours of sleep.
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| Here's an important maxim for you to keep in mind: "ignorantia juris neminem excusat."
That is, "ignorance of the law is no excuse." ... Why is this the case,
you might be wondering. I'll tell you. The traditional view was that
the maxim is associated with the statement that "everyone is presumed
to know the law." That presumption was a fair approximation of reality
in a time when the penal law was used almost exclusively to redress
attacks on people or property (assault, theft, etc.). With respect to
such offenses, a court has commented that "every one has an innate
sense of right and wrong, which enables him to know when he violates
the law..." However, modern laws define a great many crimes for which
it would be an "obvious fiction" to claim that people have an innate
sense of right and wrong about them. Thus, three modern (and
conflicting) justifications for ignorantia juris neminem excusat have been offered (by Austin, Holmes, and Hall respectively):
- If ignorance of the law was an excuse, then courts would be
involved in questions that were "scarcely possible to solve, and which
would render the administration of justice next to impracticable."
Also, if ignorance was permitted as a valid excuse, everyone would
claim ignorance.
- Rejects #1 and argues that the true explanation for the rule is
that "public policy sacrifices the individual to the general good."
This justification admits that there will be many cases in which the
criminal could not have known he was breaking the law, yet allowing the
excuse of ignorance would encourage ignorance where the government
expects people to know and obey.
- Rejects #1 and #2. Argues that permitting an individual to defend
himself on the grounds that he had a different opinion or
interpretation of the law would turn the legal order on its head. The
reason being that allowing criminals to defend themselves on the basis
of their beliefs about what the law is would essentially mean that they
got to define what the law actually is since each person would be held to their own subjective understanding rather than an objective, authoritative definition.
So, just remember...ignorantia juris neminem excusat.
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| Cold germs are circulating through Section F. I'm a wee bit sick and so are several other members in our section. I ate some Airborne, so hopefully that'll help ward off the little beasties.
The leather executive style chairs in the law library are pretty comfy--good for several hours of studying!
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| I'm sitting in the library and thought I'd post a quick update. I just finished a 3 hour team research assignment for my Legal Research and Writing class.
The class profile is now up on the UVA website: http://www.law.virginia.edu/html/prospectives/class09.htm. It's a pretty interesting read since these are now my classmates. FSU has the highest representation in the class of the last 5 years (4 as opposed to 2, 0, 1, 0). UF still has more, though, with five students. Anyway, give it a read, particularly the "Well Rounded" and "In the Real World" sections.
In other news, I went to the DMV and titled and registered my car in Virginia. I ordered my custom license plate, which will read "VAPLAN."
Busy day, busy people...gotta read Contracts for 3 hours or so before taking a break for dinner (followed by at least a couple hours spent reading for Civil Procedure--or finishing Contracts if I haven't yet). I take Sundays off, so I have to get my Monday reading done today (or Monday morning before class). Plus, there's always the suggested (hint, hint, required for the test but not discussed in class) reading that I am way behind on and need to read.
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