Prof Ngaire Naffine Email: ngaire.naffine@adelaide.edu.au Phone 83135816
Mr David Caruso Email: david.caruso@adelaide.edu.au Phone 83135501
Ms Kellie Toole (co-cordinator) Email: kellie.toole@adelaide.edu.au Phone 83134440

Criminal Law and Procedure 2015: Draft Lecture Schedule 



General Principles

Week 1: Criminal Law and Responsibility: Principles and Method

Week 2: The Elements of Offences and their analysis 



Offences and Defences

Week 3: Offences of Dishonesty

Week 4: Unlawful Killing

Week 5: Non Sexual Offences against the Person

Week 6: Sexual Offences against the Person

Week 7: Extending Responsibility: Attempts and Complicity

Week 8: Defences of Circumstance: Self Defence, Duress and Necessity

Week 9: Mental State Defences: Intoxication and Mental Impairment



Criminal Procedure

Week 10: Policing and Exclusion of Evidence

Week 11: Prosecution and Fair Trial

Week 12: Bail and Sentencing, and Revision 

 




 

Legal Practitioners' Education and Admissions Council (LPEAC) sets rules for the academic requirements for admission to legal practice in South Australia. Students must demonstrate a satisfactory level of understanding and application of 11 core areas of legal knowledge. This course teaches the following topics within these core areas:

Criminal Law
· The definition of crime and the general principles of criminal law (Priestley 1)
· The major theories of criminal responsibility
· The aims of the criminal law (Priestley 3)
· General Doctrines (Priestley 7)
· The basic elements of an offence and their analysis (Priestley 2)
· The basis of fault, strict and absolute liability (Priestley 8)
· The substantive law of selected major offences including homicide and defences (Priestley 4); Non Fatal offences against the person and defences (Priestley 5); Offences against Property (Priestley 6)
· The extension of liability through the law of attempts and complicity (Priestley 8)
· The general defences (Priestley 8)

Criminal Procedure
Police Investigation, Apprehension, Interrogation and Seizure (Priestley 9)
· Bringing Accused Persons to Court – Prosecution and Defence (Priestley 9)
· The Reception of Evidence and the Idea of the Fair Trial (Priestley 9)


On successful completion of this course, students will be able to: 
1. apply knowledge of general philosophy of criminal law and criminal responsibility, the structure of offences and defences, and principles of procedural law, in seminar discussions and written assessments
2. apply skills in statutory interpretation to legislation that creates criminal offences and defences
3. problem solve to generate evidence-based solutions to practical problems arising in the practice of criminal law
4. lead group discussion on contemporary criminal law issues 
5. critically evaluate the role of the criminal justice processes

David Caruso et al South Australian Criminal Law: Review and Critique (Lexis Nexus, 2014)

Criminal Law Consolidation Act 1935 (SA)

Other Recommended Reading – Australian Texts

• Bronitt and McSherry Principles of Criminal Law third edition (Thomson, 2010).
• Waller and Williams, Criminal Law: Text and Cases by Anthony, T; Crofts, P; Crofts, T; Gray, S; Loughnan, A; Naylor, B (Butterworths 2013 12th edition).
• David Brown, David Farrier, Sandra Egger, et al, Criminal Laws (2011 4th ed Federation Press).
• Bernadette McSherry, Australian Criminal Laws: Critical Perspectives (with Dr B Naylor) Sydney: Oxford, 2004. Recent, clearly written and, as its title indicates, critical in orientation.
• Laws of Australia: [Criminal Law Volumes] (Law Book Company, loose leaf service).

Other Recommended Reading – United Kingdom Texts

• A Ashworth and J Horder, Principles of Criminal Law (7th ed 2013 OUP)
• Lacey, Wells and Quick, Reconstructing Criminal Law (4th ed 2010)

Selected course material will be made available on MyUni. This will include lecture guides, seminar topics, assessment information and instructions. Students are expected to check MyUni regularly to keep up to date with these materials and with course announcements.

The course will be presented in approximately 36 hours of lectures (12 x 2 hours and 12 x 1 hours), 24 seminar hours (12 x 2 hours) and at least 1 weekly hour of self-directed structured learning which will take the form of the Structured Course in Basic Ideas (SCBI).

Pedagogical Approach of the SCBI: The Course in Basic Ideas will entail independent, guided, structured learning. The Course will also be linked into the main course by means of  ongoing student Presentations at weekly seminars.

Lectures and Seminars commence in Week 1 and are presented weekly thereafter through weeks 1-12, terminating in Week 12.

Students will be required to work collaboratively in the preparation and presentation of the oral presentation to their seminar group.

Students in the course are expected to attend all lectures and their weekly seminars as well as dedicate at least one hour per week to the Structured Course in Basic Ideas. The University expects full time students (those undertaking 12 units per semester) to devote a total of 48 hours per week to their studies. Preparation for seminars is essential. It is equally essential to ensure that you bring relevant legislation or other required discussion material to seminars and when required to lectures.

Activity 1: Attendance at the 2 weekly lectures.
Activity 2: Attendance and participation in a two-hour weekly seminar, which will include a Presentation.
Activity 3: At least an hour per week engaged in the Structured Course in Basic Ideas (SCBI).

Aims of the SCBI: The main aim of the Structured Course in Basic Ideas is to produce in each student a critical understanding of 12 basic ideas of criminal law by means of a directed and structured reading stream designed to develop independent learning. The aim is also to develop in students critical skills in scholarly analysis as well as a comprehension of the basic ideas running through Criminal Law and Procedure. This is in addition to the understanding of the substantive and procedural law examined in the rest of the main course.

Directions and Tasks for the SCBI: There will be up to 12 structured readings and a structured check list. (There may also be provision for students to locate and apply the check list to a self-selected reading.) There will be written directions about how they are to be read and a set of questions (the check list) requiring independent response. In essence students must independently identify, describe and criticise a basic idea in Criminal Law and Procedure, on a weekly basis. The 12 Basic Ideas will correspond to the staged development of the rest of the Course. (For example the structured reading on the Dishonesty Offences is likely to examine a scholarly work on the idea of dishonesty and its significance for these offences. Or for another example, the structured reading on Offences Against the Person is likely to examine the idea of consent to harm.) Oral Directions on the Structured Course in Ideas will also be given in the First Seminar and here there will be an opportunity to ask questions, to receive preliminary guidance and for any related discussion. Thenceforth, students will be expected to be self-directed and to proceed independently.

Expectations of the SCBI Students will be expected to dedicate at least one hour (but ideally at least 2 hours) to each of the 12 structured readings and to preparing answers to the guided questions which they can refer to in seminar classes. Students are expected to give one Seminar Presentation, in which they will be expected to introduce and explain the relevant Idea from the SCBI and briefly explain its relevance to the problems for that week. They may also choose to quiz students on the nature of this connection.
 Students will be expected to have a grasp of all 12 ideas and to have developed their own appreciation of their significance and also their relationship to one another.

Not applicable.

Assessment Item	% of final mark	Dates	Length	Redeemable	Learning Objectives
Attendance and satisfactory participation at seminars	Pass/Fail		Individual	No	1-6
Presentation at seminars (group)	10%			No	1-10
Assignment	20%	Due: 22st April	1500 words	Yes	1, 2, 6
Exam	70%	Exam Period	3 hours plus reading time	-	1-5

Presentation mark – non redemption: A presentation mark is not redeemable.

Presentation [10%]

Each student will be expected to give one presentation in seminars. This will typically be done in groups of 2 or 3 and will take 10 minutes at the beginning of the seminar. (Strict time will be kept.) At their presentation, presenting students will be expected to introduce and explain briefly the relevant Idea from the Structured Course in Basic Ideas and, ideally, link it to the problems set for that week. Unless there are exceptional reasons, students who present together will be assigned the same mark. Exceptional reasons may include a failure to be present at the SCBI presentations of others.

The method of teaching will be interactive, with students expected to participate. Seminar classes will be taught as seminars, not lectures. It is expected that the relevant reading materials will be read (thoroughly) prior to each seminar. Relevant legislation must be brought to the seminars. There is little point in attending if this not done.

Assignment [20%]

The assignment is optional and redeemable and counts for 20% of the marks in the subject. It can be redeemed by the exam if the assignment achieves a pass grade.

The assignment will be made available, via MyUni, in Week 4 or 5. Past practice, which is likely to be followed this year, has been to set a topic that requires research and critical analysis of:

The subject matter of the assignment will be drawn from the topics that will be examined in the final examination in Criminal Law and Procedure. The assignment will offer, however, an opportunity for a more reflective, research based consideration of the topic set for consideration. A pass in the assignment is not a prerequisite for satisfaction of the Priestley requirements for demonstrated knowledge of Criminal Law and Procedure.

References: All assignments must be correctly referenced, using the Australian Guide to Legal Citation (University of Melbourne Press), available through the Law Library website or in hard-copy in the Law Library or at any major bookstore. References are to be placed in footnotes, not endnotes. Also, all assignments must include a bibliography, listing all sources cited (and only those).

Word limit:

The word limit for the assignment is 1500 words.

Word count does not include footnotes and appendices.

Footnotes should not be used, however, as a vehicle for analysis/discussion/argument that exceeds the word limit.

Assessment criteria:

A more extended account of assessment criteria will accompany the assignment when it is posted on MYUNI.

Examination [70%]

This year there will be a three hour, open book examination.

It is each student's responsibility to read the examination timetable. Misreading the timetable is not accepted as grounds for granting a supplementary exam. University staff are not permitted to provide examination times to students over the telephone or in response to personal enquiries.

The exam will be an open-book examination, excluding material borrowed from the Barr-Smith or Law libraries. It is likely that it will consist of three  questions, all of which must be answered, as follows:


The requirements of the paper ensure that a pass in the examination will demonstrate that the candidate has attained an acceptable level of knowledge of the elements of criminal law and procedure required for admission to practice. The rules governing admission to practice are promulgated in Legal Practitioners Education and Admission to Practice 2004: http://www.courts.sa.gov.au/lawyers/admissions_rules/lpeac_rules/LPEAC_Rules_2004_Amendment_No_3.pdf.  The requirements for each of the ‘Priestley 11’, required courses, are set out in Appendix A (pp24-31).

 
Assessment criteria:

Papers will be graded according to the level to which they demonstrate capacity for:

Submission of Assignments
Return of Assignments:
Assignments will be returned within 3-4 weeks of the due date for submission of the assignment

Late Submission: 5% of the total mark possible will be deducted for every 24 hours or part thereof that it is late, including each day on a weekend. For example, an essay that is submitted after the due date and time but within the first 24 hour period, and that has been graded at 63%, will have 5% deducted, for a final grade of 58%. An essay that is more than 24 hours late will lose 10%, etc. Hard copy submissions made after 5.00pm on a Friday will be assumed to have been submitted on the next business day and will be penalised accordingly.

Word Length: Assignments which exceed the allocated length (word length or page limit) will be subject to a penalty of 5% of total marks possible per 100 words or part thereof (ie with a word limit of 3,000, an essay graded 63% will have 5% deducted if it is 3001 words long, for a final grade of 58%, 10% if it is 3101 words long, etc). Words are calculated including all footnotes and headings within the text but excluding cover page information. Quotations and all referencing information are included in the word count.

Courses for which a result of conceded pass has been obtained may not be presented towards the degree requirements for the Bachelor of Laws or the Honours Degree of Bachelor of Laws programs, or any postgraduate law program, nor to satisfy prerequisite requirements within any law course.

The University Writing Centre provides academic learning and language development services and resources for local, international, undergraduate and postgraduate coursework students enrolled at the University of Adelaide.

Practical advice and strategies for students to master reading, writing, note-taking, time management, oral presentation skills, referencing techniques and exam preparation for success at university through seminars, workshops and individual consultations.

For more information please check out the Writing Centre website at http://www.adelaide.edu.au/writingcentre/  
 
Lex Salus Program

Lex Salus was founded in 2013 by Adelaide Law School Wellbeing officers Ms Corinne Walding, Ms Kellie Toole and Dr Mark Giancaspro. Lex Salus is an initiative of the Adelaide Law School aimed at raising law student awareness of the importance of mental, physical and nutritional health across all year levels of the degree, and of the various counselling, disability and equity services both within and outside the University that can provide help. Research shows that law students, both in Australia and in many jurisdictions around the world, experience the highest levels of stress, anxiety and depression out of any other discipline. Many do not get enough sleep, maintain a healthy diet or achieve a realistic work/life balance. Making matters worse, they are unwilling or afraid to speak up for fear of feeling 'weak' or because of the negative stigma that attaches to seeking help. Lex Salus is dedicated to tackling these problems head-on.

Counselling Service

The University Counselling Service provides a free and confidential service to all enrolled students. We encourage you to contact the Counselling service on 8313 5663 to make an appointment to deal with any issues that may be affecting your study and life. More information is available at https://www.adelaide.edu.au/counselling_centre/. 

Further information regarding the Law School Policies and Procedures in relation to Supplementary Assessment, Extensions, and Remarks etc can be found at:

https://unified.adelaide.edu.au/group/law-school/policies-and-procedures

Plagiarism and other forms of cheating

Plagiarism is a serious act of academic misconduct. All students must be familiar with the Adelaide Law School Enrolment Guide, and should note in particular the sections relating to plagiarism, grievance procedures and academic conduct within the Law School and the University.

Plagiarism is a serious matter and is treated as such by the Law School and the University. Please be aware that “academic dishonesty” (which goes beyond plagiarism) can be a ground for a refusal by the Supreme Court of South Australia to refuse to admit a person to practice as a legal practitioner in South Australia.

Academic honesty is an essential aspect of ethical and honest behaviour, which is central to the practice of the law and an understanding of what it is to be a lawyer.