Book Discussion
For this assignment, you will discuss James Duane’s book You Have the Right to Remain Innocent, which details some of the issues present in the United States criminal justice system.
Page Contents
Presentation by the Author
Prof. Duane gave a presentation about the book at The Cato Institute, which provides an overview of the major concepts. Please note that watching this presentation is not a substitute for reading the book! The presentation does not have enough depth to provide examples as required by this assignment.
Assessment
Upon successful participation in this discussion, you should be able to:
- Describe examples of people convicted of crimes defined by overly broad laws, after “having nothing to hide” and answering investigators’ questions.
- Explain in four words what to say if an investigator wishes to ask you any questions.
- State the expected outcome of attempting to interview a well-informed suspect.
This activity supports the following course Student Learning Outcome:
- SLO 1. Explain legal and ethical issues related to the practice of digital forensics.
Requirements
- Review the initial posts that have been made in the forum so far, so that you can choose a different example to use for your initial post. The longer you wait to prepare your initial post, the greater likelihood someone else will have taken the same example before you.
- In the Book Discussion Forum in the course learning management system, create a new topic.
- Create your Initial Discussion Post for your topic. This post must be written in your own words. For maximum credit, you must post a coherent and well-developed initial post, with good grammar and copy-editing. For the content of this post, pick an example from Duane’s book that shows how a person could unwittingly confess to a nonsensical crime (and go to prison) created by an overly broad interpretation of a poorly written law. Include page numbers where your example may be found in the book. You may NOT copy, or substantially copy, another person’s initial post. If another person has posted the same initial topic, you must either choose a different example from the book or take a different position on the example than the first person who posted. For full credit, your initial post must be at least 500 words in length.
- While not required, you MAY search for and cite sources on the Internet or elsewhere, including Wikipedia articles. Be sure to give enough information with each citation so that a person reading it can find the original source easily.
- Participate in the discussion by posting at least 2 replies across the whole forum (including other students’ topics). For full credit, each reply must be fully developed (200 words or more).
Grading Standards
- An initial discussion topic is posted, covering an example from Duane’s book (20 points).
- The initial discussion topic is at least 500 words in length (50 points).
- At least 2 replies are posted to other students’ discussion posts (15 points).
- Each of the required replies is at least 200 words in length (15 points).
