#criminal law

[minilibrarian]

Morning study ft. Criminal law 📚

[causeimcrayzeebee]

Wolfgang Akire through the lens of the law: an analysis

i would like to give a disclaimer that while im very interested in the law, im not a lawyer or in law school. my knowledge comes from the few law classes i have taken, participation in a couple mock trials, and some personal research, so please take this with a grain of salt! if im missing something or saying something inaccurate, please let me know! i am always open to learning more!! not to mention this is my understanding of law in the United States, so this may differ by country.

in the end, this isn’t meant to be too serious, just using the knowledge i do have and applying it to p:eg!!!

okay now spoilers for the prologue and all of chapter 1!

well ig before we get into it let me say rest in peace a king... I will miss you, you hypocritical bastard........

alright, so firstly, let’s consider Wolfgang’s character profile.

two things stand out to me here. the first is how he has “successfully defended over 200 of his clients without dropping a single case.” we can infer that Wolfgang is a criminal defense attorney. it’s possible he could be a lawyer in the civil law sector instead, but considering his strong feelings about murder and crime, and the fact that this is Danganronpa, it leads me to believe he is a criminal attorney for the sake of relevance (I don't think any of us would care if he were a corporate attorney after all).

now, that sentence you just read is particularly interesting in the case of Wolfgang Akire. From the prologue's mock trial, we can see that Wolfgang feels very passionately about murder, condemning the murderer even without insight as to why they committed the crime, instead big on retribution and justice (which the definition of could definitely be debated). Yet, as a defense lawyer, Wolfgang would have been defending people from criminal accusations, from anything to armed robbery, arson, or murder. we’re not particularly sure on his view of other crime, but we can assume he also has a similarly negative view of it that he has of murder. out of 200 people (within such a short time span of finishing law school too), what are the odds that out of all 200, not one of them was actually guilty? of course, lawyers have the ability to drop or not take on cases, but as his profile says, he hasn’t dropped a single case! it’s quite possible he had complete faith that every client was innocent, but with the evidence and files he’d have to go through, he had to have seen something that was damning and prepared accordingly to address in the most sympathetic way possible to avoid prosecution winning their case. and that's the thing with Wolfgang; his job requires building sympathy for the accused, and it requires sowing seeds of doubt in prosecution's case. there had to have been someone that he was defending from an accurate charge(s). so whether he knew it or not, he has very likely defended people guilty of crime; and yet, he still feels very adamantly against them.

Here's where I fall short on my analysis; I honestly do not know what to make of this conclusion. his behavior and his ideals are almost contradictory in a sense. is this insight to wolfgang's clear hypocrisy? but what does that really say about him? I'd love to know what any of y'all think in regards to this :0

Now, the second thing that stands out to me is that he wants to make sure that everyone is fairly represented and make sure logic and evidence drive the discussion. While this does seem to be true, the mock trial shows that he lets his feelings become a big part of the discussion as well. everything he does screams prosecutor to me, so it was shocking to find out he works as defense. Wolfgang has a very interesting way of viewing things, almost dichotomous, unlike what his profile says. it's similar to the format of a trial, where it's not meant to be a team working together to find the complexities and nuance within a certain issue, but rather an attempt to prove your point and disprove the other side. trials aren't supposed to be a discussion where everyone reaches the truth together (Danganronpa trials are not very accurate but of course I don't think they were intended to be in the first place), they are for you to win your case-- as a defense attorney, its poking as many holes into the prosecution’s case as possible. (little fun side note, this is very similar to how debate works; Wolfgang and Damon are a lot more alike than one would originally think.)

Considering all of this, it makes me wonder if Wolfgang was intentionally trying to split the group apart,,,, because it's easier. because it makes more sense. as defense, lawyers may pin the crime on another, but without the burden of proof that prosecution does, they can sling out accusations to increase doubt on prosecutions case without having to actually prove it (that would be left for a separate case). it's easier to divide a group and have a bunch of people follow you while isolating the 'other side', and with that division made, it's more likely someone you isolated will be the 'villian' anyways; and in this case, this was true-- Eva, who has been socially ostracized her whole life, was driven to murder to protect herself from the blinding fear that everyone was out for her (even if that wasn't entirely true). this could be just how Wolfgang has gotten used to going through his life. maybe the bad habits he picked up from his father were the divisive kind of us vs them mindset lawyers have to have in a courtroom.

speaking of his father, let's address the motive-- there's so many things that Wolfgang's blackmail could be about; faking his law degree, not taking the bar exam, defending horrible people, the list goes on. Honestly, a scenario i have considered is that it's about him defending his father for a crime he actually did commit, yet winning the case; or his father commuting a crime in general and winning his case, leaving Wolfgang conflicted as that is the sort of thing he does all the time, yet his father had just taken away his mothers life and gotten free (this is very much just me guessing a possibility though). when Wolfgang was hallucinating, he says he's not like them (to diana who he thinks is someone else) and he'll never be like them; It's most likely that he saw his father. the theory I'm going with right now is that his father was at the very least heavily involved in the likely murder of his mother (thus bring her back in reference to his mom). his father was probably also a lawyer and may have pushed wolfgang into going into the field himself, especially when he sent him to law school as a teenager. maybe Wolfgang wanted to live up to the expectations his father had of him. who knows exactly what Wolfgang wanted everyone to know him as, it was probably a long the lines of a competent lawyer. but, as of right now it's all speculation (objection! haha.... that was not funny my bad), so again, I'd love to hear some thoughts.

Another little funny thing i'd like to note is when Damon and Eva come back to the dinning hall and Wolfgang asks where they've been, Damon responds saying it was for discussing the motive. He's internally smug about how defeated Wolfgang seemed to be by that, and I thought that the funniest shit; very similar to being on cross examination, thinking you have the witness in your hands, when suddenly they wiggle out of your accusation. he's so real for that.

that is pretty much all i've got so far! let me know what y'all think and thanks for reading!!! :)

[floral-ashes]

I’d like to point out that if someone accidentally loses a tooth as a result of shower sex, that’s probably criminal in Alberta. But not someone losing a tooth from being punched in the face as part of a boxing match.

I don’t know about you, but that does feel a bit weird.

[cumaeansibyl]

here's something I wish more people understood:

the police are never required to read you your Miranda rights.

"but if they don't then the arrest is invalid!" no. false. stop saying this. Miranda rights only apply to questioning. if you haven't been properly Mirandized, the police can't use your statements in court.

they are still allowed to question you! they can still write down what you say and go investigate it. they just can't use it in court, but maybe they don't care, because you gave them a tip they were able to use anyway.

there are also times when they aren't particularly interested in questioning you right away, so you can just sit in jail without being told a damn thing and that's legal. there's a time limit on how long they can keep you before charging you, but once they've got a charge they don't exactly have to be in a rush.

now a lot of times cops will go ahead and read you your rights at arrest because then it's over with, but people seem to have concluded from this that it's illegal to arrest someone without Mirandizing them first, which just isn't true.

I feel like even a lot of people who don't trust cops are not aware of how much unacceptable shit is perfectly legal for cops to do. Like, you think it must be illegal for them to lie and coerce and mistreat people but it's actually much worse than that. They're violating human rights with the full consent of the law.

[virescerea]

03/02/2025 — sunday

၊||၊|။|| now playing : bruises by ethel cain

[darkdrawing0]

Today, when we went to the forensics, I was in the morgue section, and I was always looking to see someone like Sherlock there :'((((

# Wasn't HE supposed to be in the morgue?!

# What if I don't find Sherlock in the criminal justice field? :'V

# I NEED HIM FOR MY ..Criminal assignments given by professor's

[alpaca-clouds]

Let's Talk About Prison Abolition Once More

I hope by now y'all are aware that I am a political being with some political opinions. One of the opinions that at the very extremist - even though this still confuses me so much - is the fact that I am a staunch prison abolitionist. In fact, I am completely against punishing anyone for anything.

And here is why.

See, when I was 17, I had a classmate. And this classmate's father killed his mother during an argument as the two of them were getting divorced. I talked to the father afterwards. He was devastated. Sure, I am aware that only he and his wife were present as the act happened. But according to him, he and his wife had argued about a certain rug. A stupid little thing. Who was going to keep the rug after the divorce? The argument escalated. He slapped her. She slapped him. He shoved her. And she... fell down the stairs, breaking her neck. He instantly called the police and ambulance, but there was nothing to be done.

Now, I am not a lawyer, but to me this was manslaughter. Not murder. And I prosecuting manslaughter does not really make sense (because it accepts that you did not mean do actually do that harm), unless you prosecute murder, which of course makes a whole lot of sense first and foremost.

Still, that father was prosecuted for murder. I was not there during the process. (See, other than in America a lot of criminal processes in Germany happen without an audience.) But it means that my classmate, who was still in school, and his younger brother, who was 15 at the time, had now no parental figure anymore. They were moved to their grandparents and had to change school - for the older one, my classmate, this meant changing school in his final year at school. It will not surprise you to learn, he failed his first attempt at a degree, right?

And this brings me to the question: Who profited from this father being put in prison? Did society profit from it? Because the kids didn't. I doubt the father did. And society...

A few years later I did a summer job for a couple of weeks, and one of my colleagues there was a young man who just had come out of prison after being there for murder. He had killed another younger when he had been a teenager. While he had been prosecuted under juvenile law, he had gone to prison for seven years, and while he had been allowed to go into the juvenile detention school, this just gave him a very low rated degree. (I won't explain German school degrees here, but let's just say: They are highly classist and in prison you can only get the worst class of it.) Now his parents did not want to interact with him anymore, he was living on the sofa of his brother who was at uni, and nobody wanted to hire him, because he was a murderer. At the job I was pretty much the only person who would talk to him.

Now, here is the thing about me: I will usually believe people. I am trying very much my best to assume the best in people. So if someone tells me, he regrets something and did not want to do it, I am going to assume that is the truth.

And here is the thing: Most people who are in prison are imprisoned for stupid stuff. Drug possession, drug dealing, minor burglary, minor violent stuff, and some stuff that normally gets handled with a fine they had been unable to pay. And I think, when I talk about this stuff, a lot more people will easily agree that it is stupid to imprison people for that.

Because most leftists at least understand that drug possession and drug dealings are complicated in a way that outlawing it will not help anyone in any way. A lot of burglary will come out of need. (I mean, so many of us who are poor have stolen probably hundreds of Euros or dollars worth from the grocery store.)

And the entire stuff about fines? I mean, let's face it. Fines are inherently classist. The rich will just laugh at any fine you make them pay, while poor people cannot even afford to pay 200€ in fines often. Heck, taking the bus without a ticket costs 70€ in Germany + the price of the ticket. Objectively not a lot. But a lot of people cannot afford it. And should someone really go to prison because of that? For the crime of being poor? Something that will probably end them up more poor, because they will most likely use their job over going to prison.

"B-b-but," I hear you say, "you were talking about murder before! Surely you think murderers should be punished, right?"

Here is the thing. I don't. I really don't. Because I read those nasty scientific papers on the psychology of murder, and this... made me come to a conclusion: The only thing that prison archives is that the rest of society has a feeling that the world is a bit more "just" because the "evil" people get punished. But here is the thing: Most people who murder only ever murder one person in their life, unless this happens inside of wars (gangwars are included). This one murder is not something that happens out of a well calculated action, but mostly out of passion. Most murders are arguments that get out of hand. Often times the murderer will instantly confess, and be horrified by themselves. They need therapy, not prison. They already know they have done wrong. You do not need to punish them for them to understand that.

"But there are others," I also hear you say. And you are right. There are absolutely a very few people who are mentally ill in some way, and those who have been conditioned in the military, police or in organized crime (yeah, I know: Corporate wants you to spot the difference) to kill, might also do it again and again. But, guess what: Police folks often do not end in prison. Military only does in some circumstances. And generally... You do not make the world a better place by putting a couple of organized crime people into prison - because the general problem of organized crime is bigger than the single people.

You know, just like killing a single healthcare CEO does not get rid of that organized crime, it does not undo the mafia to imprison a godfather from the mafia.

And this is the thing: It might feel somewhat right to "punish" the bad guys, but the fact remains, that it does not better the world in any meaningful way. Because technically speaking, even if we just talk about people commiting VIOLENT CRIME you have two different scenarios:

The person is very aware of how bad the thing they did was, and they either did it because of a single moment of loss of self-regulation. In this case they will need therapy for the trauma, but you will not teach them anything through imprisonment.

The person does not accept that what they did was wrong. In which case they also need a lot of therapy - just with a very different focus than the therapy that the person who is aware of how bad they were is.

The latter will lead me to one of the biggest problems. See: Among the people committing violence, who will often feel entitled to that violence, are men committing violence against women (especially partners or ex partners) in a patriarchal society. However, we also know that they are also the most likely to still go back to old habits and then be violent again after prison - often feeling even further confirmed in their believes, as often those criminal men will meet other misogynistic men in prison. And mind you: Psychologists have not yet found a method that absolutely will cure misogyny. Like studies done on those men who are imprisoned for violence against women, have rarely more than a 40% success rate - often less. So, while I absolutely agree that those men need to be dealt with, prison is not making it better.

And of course there still is absolutely a need to do something about this. But here is the thing: Prison does not make anything better. It does not help in any regard. For the most part it only does make things worse.

Because even in those cases, when people are doing bad things for bad reasons... Prison will just make their life circumstances worse when they get out - and makes them likely to be criminal once more. Be it because they are forced to recommit crimes, or because they loathe the world so much for their situation.

See, let me go back to the guy from the summer job, who was in his early twenties. Nobody wanted to hire him. Nobody wanted to rent him a place. And as I said, I was pretty much the only person willing to talk to him. And this kid - and let's face it, with 22 he was barely more than a kid - was sitting there and wondering at times: "Maybe I should be criminal. Because it is the only kind of people who will still take me."

And if the prison and punishment system ends you with people, who are not inherently bad pondering something like that... I am sorry, it is just not a good system.

[kayystudiess]

Good afternoon! Back with some pink notes 🩷 these are my absolute essentials for notes!!

Kokuyo campus notebook in B5, Kacogreen pens & unipin fine liner for titles :)

[dunesofpriam]

Who would have guessed; our middleaged paedo client has decided to transition right after getting imprisonable charges.

[beyond-mybeloved-horizon]

It's sunny and very hot outside.

I'll have a trip next week. To enjoy it , today I read some text books.

[nolshru]

eh, I always see this disclaimer, so even though it absolutely goes without saying - none of this is legal advice, it is just a bored law student talking about something interesting, and much of this has a high likelihood to be incorrect, don't listen to me for any reason other than entertainment pleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepl

so, I was reading the Discord terms of service when I noticed the "don't do anything else that's illegal"

and like, "'anything else that's illegal' means 'anything else that's illegal'" is just... really silly - this is completely unenforceable

so, how do we define illegality? for most legal systems its really easy, all crimes are statutory in most of them, and actually beyond that, most of them have criminal codes, so it can be easily resolved for a country like Germany, or France, or Italy by saying "for the purposes of this document, 'anything else that's illegal' refers to any offense listed in the criminal code of the user's country"

this doesn't *really* work, though, because many countries, particularly those in common law systems, such as England and Wales, the USA, or Australia, do not have criminal codes (though, there are some common law systems with criminal codes, like Canada (maybe including quebec? honestly don't know, it doesn't use the same legal system as elsewhere in Canada), these are rare), common law's law based on precedent means that a good deal of crimes aren't even statutory to any real extent (oh, just for the sake of it, and me having this knowledge, Scotland doesn't have a criminal code - this is just relevant because it's both a civil and common law system, so ye, unsure about any other hybrid system (oh, Quebec is back, hi Quebec))

this term remains unenforceable, really, like, what constitutes illegality just isn't defined, so, what would some alternatives be? (all of these will be relevant to Scotland, because I know Scotland best)

Option 1: For the purposes of this document, "anything else that is illegal" refers to statutory offenses not otherwise described in this document

this doesn't include all crimes, but it includes a lot of the most serious crimes, such as not reporting how many female salmon you have in your fish farm, not keeping records on fish sales for 3 years, or catching a sea fish that are the wrong size (I tried to find specifics, but Marine and Coastal Access Act 2009 was very vague and I really don't want to keep looking through fish related legislation) - I think this is probably my preferred solution, but like, it really does not apply to every law, common law is a huge aspect of how criminality is described in Scotland - notably, the writings of Baron Hume are excluded, which like, until fairly recently was the source of crimes as serious as rape and serious sexual assault, so like, yeah, it's definitely not a perfect solution, there's probably other cases like that

Option 2: For the purposes of this document, "anything else that is illegal" refers to any behaviour that Discord considers to be illegal

this works, but it gives Discord uh... a lot of power that I wouldn't want it to have - surprised this *isn't* what Discord says, but like, I'm glad it isn't

Option 3: For the purposes of this document, "anything else that is illegal" refers to <list of things that are considered illegal>

this also works, but I think it's weaker and less effective than option 1, inclusio unius est exclusio alterius, after all, if you don't include something like "not informing customers as to the origin of fish sold", then you are impliedly giving permission to users that they are allowed to do that, so I really don't like this solution

Option 4: keep as is

I like this solution 2, sure it's unenforceable, but like, so are arbitration clauses and those are everywhere - even if you can't enforce a term in a contract, it's still a term in a contract, and people aren't just going to breach it because they can, it's like, fine and stuff

anyways, that was fun, bye

[minilibrarian]

Studying in the fresh air ft. the extremely heavy stack I have to bring to school on Mondays 😫

[floral-ashes]

Law students expect infinitely more coherence from the law than the law is able to provide.

Nothing about criminal law makes sense. Teaching criminal law is an exercise in pretending it makes sense just long enough for students to be able to write an exam about it.

My internal monologue during course preparation: “Hahahahahahahahahahahahaha, I hope my students don’t ask about this.”

It’s not that I don’t know the topic well enough to answer. It’s that I have a table of Supreme Court decisions where they give five different answers to the question.

And yes, of course, I can just tell them it doesn’t make sense. I can remind them that the system exists to reproduce racial capitalism, not to make sense. But that’s deeply dissatisfying to most of them. They want certainty, otherwise they feel like they’re not on track to becoming a competent lawyer.

[tsukimefuku]

I don't normally talk on Tumblr but i just want to say I love love love your pics girlie. As someone who's 19 and wants to be a criminal lawyer myself, you are an inspiration for me as it's something I want to pursue.

Especially giving a voice to those who definitely need it the most 💕

Is there any advice that you'd give me for wanting to pursue in the field? Even the basics will help. I want a perspective from someone who's actually (I assume) doing this full time, if you're willing to pass the knowledge, Sensei 🙂‍↕️ (I pray for your sleep schedule and overall well being)

Hope you're doing well, sincerely! Keep doing what you love!

Hi!! Thank you so much, I'm always very happy to get these types of asks/DMs, and it will be my pleasure and privilege to help to any extent 💜

I've been thinking about this ask for weeks, but wanted to reply to it on my pc, and getting Tumblr to work again over here was its whole shebang 😅

Tips, tips, tips... okay, let's start at the beginning. I'm writing these considering my experience in my country (Brazil), so you might have to adapt a few things here and there depending on where you're from.

First off, the most important thing you can do is not slack off in college. In college it's where you're going to hone in not only some of the skills needed for this job (like the ability to seat and read, and read, and read precedents, bills, etc for extended amounts of time while paying attention to the details) but make your first professional contacts, especially with teachers. I absolutely slacked off regarding networking with my teachers (thanks to the 'tism) and although I got a jumpstart with academic research, my professional life did suffer.

Find an internship and use this time in college to experiment with as much areas as possible. I did have some familiarity with criminal law due to my family, so I had some idea I did like it. However, I had my fair share of internships in private law, and I kid you not, many organizational skills to study big lawsuits (currently, most the lawsuits in my firm are what we call mega ops, so they usually have 10k+ pages) I honed while in private law. Given these giant firms that work with private law tend to have a LOT of lawsuits to juggle, it's inevitable that they develop systems and specific bureaucratics to juggle it all. Take what knowledge you can from it.

If you can get an internship in a public defender's office, do. It's where you will find the most diverse list of lawsuits (concerning types of crimes) and you will get to learn multiple ways to come up with a defense strategy. Very rarely defense will be dependent on alibi, for example "I didn't do it, I wasn't there, it wasn't me, etc.". Consider learning from a public defender the equivalent to a general residence before you become more specialized, and what you learn here will be incredibly valuable going forward.

Try to get into a criminal law office midway through your law degree (idk how the undergrad+spec works in the US, I think this would be just as you go into the law specific subjects I guess). Usually here in Brazil, you get into a law firm as an intern and work with them up until you graduate, and since you've been there for all that time, you are then hired as a junior. Check if it works like that where you live too.

This one is more personal -- your client's problems are NOT your problems. I've been an attorney volunteer to overturn wrongful convictions alongside an institute here in my country akin to The Innocence Project (the human rights organization), and it was one of the hardest times of my professional life. To watch people suffering from every goddamn sort of AWFUL injustices and having my hands and feet tied most of the time, because the system is RIGGED to screw a specific demographic (the poor and the people of color). Think of it as a doctor would -- you give your best to help the patient to the best of your capabilities, but sometimes they will still suffer from things that are completely out of your control. To be a criminal defense lawyer is to accept a certain degree of helplessness regarding the system you're going to work with (and mostly against) for the good part of your life. I don't mean to discourage you, but it is hard, so brace yourself. It's a beautiful profession, and I will absolutely be waiting for you on the other side 💜

[snarkylinda]

Ok that was absolutely precious. I need more of the Bau interacting with the others's love interests/families.

[rozil4]

And what about it??