Hypothetical Assignment
Instructions
Due Date: 23.59 pm (AEDT), 17th December 2022
Word Limit: 2000 words, not including footnotes or reference list. Weighting: 40%
Please read this document in its entirety. It contains not only the assignment
question, but information relevant to how the assignment will be assessed.
All citation of sources must be compliant with the Australian Guide to Legal Citation (4th edition).
Students cannot submit an assignment unless they have completed AIRLI. Please ensure that you complete AIRLI well before the assignment is due. Problems with completing AIRLI are not an excuse for late submission.
Regarding referencing requirements, please refer to the Student Coursework Academic Misconduct Rule (the Rule), especially [8] and [9], for information regarding plagiarism.
Please remember that the assignment is not group work. Do not discuss any aspect of your assignment with anyone else – not even the issues or the structure. These are assessable aspects of the assignment.
The consequences of a finding of academic misconduct are very serious, especially for law students, because such a finding can adversely impact on entitlement to be admitted into legal practice. The onus is on you, the student, to ensure that you understand and comply with the Rule. If you are unsure, it’s much better to ask.
Please see the Law School Student Essentials for word limit and extension policies.
Submit your assignment via the link in the Assessment module on the unit’s Moodle site. Please be advised that UNE uses Turnitin plagiarism detection software.
Required Reading for the Assignment
- Anthony Marinac et al, ‘Chapter 7: Frameworks for Legal Thinking’ in Marinac et al, Learning Law (CUP, 2018) 171 (on ‘Reading List’, link from Moodle’s home tile).
- ‘How to answer legal problem-solving questions – including the IRAC method’ and Tasks A, B and C, in ‘Writing for Law’ in the Law Skills Hub.
- All required readings for topics 1, 3, 4 and 7.
- Crimes Act, ss 18, 23A, 94-96.
- This document – in entirety.
- A brief lecture specifically on the assignment on the Moodle site (from week 3).
LAW162 Assignment Question 2022
Yan-Wei, 70-year-old woman, runs a successful retail business in Liverpool selling Asian groceries. Every day leading up to the event described below, Yan-Wei would take the cash receipts to her bank, located 100 metres from her shop. She routinely walked there through the bustling shopping strip at about 2.30 pm, carrying the cash in a tote bag slung over her shoulder.
Mikey is an ice addict. He worked in a shop across the road from Yan-Wei’s shop until he was sacked for stealing from his employer. Mikey is now dependant on government welfare and is desperate for cash to feed his habit. Mikey recalled that Yan-Wei, an older woman of small stature, walked to the bank with a tote bag every day at the same time. Clearly, that bag must contain the cash takings.
Mikey decided that taking the bag from Yan-Wei would be easy. His plan was that he would wait at the bus stop where he had a clear view of Yan-Wei’s shop and when she left the shop to walk to the bank, he would sprint past and yank the tote bag from her shoulder and keep running around the corner where he could get lost in the crowd of the mall. Easy! No-one gets hurt!
At 2.28 pm, on 24th October 2022, Mikey was waiting at the bus stop, ready to execute his plan. When Yan-Wei exited her shop and headed towards the bank. Mikey sprinted towards Yan-Wei and as he reached her, he grabbed the bag. The bag was slung over her left shoulder, but Yan-Wei was holding onto it with her right hand. The bag did not slide off her shoulder. Instead, when Mikey pulled the bag, Yan-Wei was spun around by the force. Mikey was surprised by this and frustrated that Yan-Wei didn’t simply let go of the bag. He pulled at the bag again, harder, and with a twisting motion, and at the same time with his other hand, he shoved Yan-Wei with all his strength, in the direction of the roadway. Mikey didn’t want to hurt the woman, but he also realised that forcefully shoving a small elderly woman would probably cause her some injury, especially if she fell over from the force. (He recalled his own grandmother had broken her pelvis from a simple fall. She was hospitalised but never recovered, dying a month later.) Still, it couldn’t be helped. He had to get that bag! The simultaneous pulling and shoving worked, and the bag twisted free of Yan-Wei’s grip. Yan- Wei was propelled backwards by the force of the shove three metres onto the roadway and into the path of a bus travelling at 40 kph. The bus driver had no chance to stop in time before impacting with Yan-Wei.
Yan-Wei was taken to hospital with internal injuries from the impact with the bus. Despite competently performed surgery, doctors were unable to stop the internal bleeding and Yan-Wei died on the operating table. It turned out that Yan-Wei had suffered two previous strokes and she took a blood-thinning medication, Warfarin, to help prevent further episodes. Yan-Wei actually took double the prescribed dose, in the belief that this gave her extra protection from strokes. The medical pathologist who performed the autopsy opined that if Yan-Wei had not taken such a high dose of Warfarin, the surgeons would have been able to control the bleeding and she would most likely have survived. The pathologist also reported other injuries unrelated to the impact with the bus. Yan-Wei suffered a broken left clavicle (collar bone), dislocated left shoulder and torn muscles and ligaments around the left shoulder joint. The broken clavicle was caused by a blunt force trauma to the upper chest (ie, the very forceful push) and the shoulder and joint injuries caused by twisting of the arm against the direction of the push when the bag was pulled from her body.
Is Mickey criminally liable for any offences on the foregoing facts? In relation to the death of Yan-Wei, explain why Mikey is or is not liable for murder, manslaughter or statutory manslaughter. Bearing in mind that charges can be presented to the jury as alternatives, make sure that you cover all arguable possibilities for convicting for murder and manslaughter.
Marking Criteria
- The answer addresses the question/s
- Identification of issues
- Identification of relevant law – quality of research
- Discussion of the relevant law – demonstrates nuanced understanding of the applicable case law and legislation
- Application of law to facts – demonstrates nuanced understanding of how the law applies in context
- Structure – contains a concise introduction and conclusion, content is organised coherently, headings and subheadings used appropriately
- Presentation – quality of written expression, free of grammatical, punctuation and spelling errors
- AGLC4 compliance.
Marks will not be awarded separately for each of these criteria. Rather, marks will be awarded for each issue, taking these criteria into account globally.
FAQs
How should I go about answering the question?
I strongly recommend that you use the IRAC method.
- Issue: Identify the particular legal issue.
- Rule: Discuss the law applicable to that issue, remembering to cite the relevant legal authority (cases and legislation).
- Application: Apply the law to the facts.
- Conclusion: Make a conclusion about the issue.
Repeat this process for each issue identified.
What are the most common mistakes when answering hypothetical assignments?
The most serious and quite common mistakes are:
- Insufficient detail in discussion of the law: The slides are not a sufficient foundation for the assignment. Students need to demonstrate nuanced understanding of the applicable legislation and case law. In the case of the latter, that involves reading the cases. Once you’ve identified the key cases you need, please read them. Do not rely on extracts in the text.
- Not reading the facts and the question with sufficient care. If you misread the facts, you are likely to miss issues altogether or misapply them. You also need to
consider the question carefully. If the question asks about offences committed by Jane there are no marks available for discussing offences committed by Mary.
- Missing issues: there will be marks designated for each issue. If you don’t recognise and deal with an issue you lose a chunk of potential marks.
- The scattergun approach: another common error involves summarising everything covered in the unit regarding the law relating to the issue. This is an error because it is only the relevant law that needs to be discussed and a scattergun approach conveys to the marker that student doesn’t know which bits of the law are relevant.
- Failing to apply the law: Following discussion of the law, many students purport to apply it by saying something like, ‘obviously, that applies to this case.’ That is not application of law; it is a conclusion. Once the applicable law has been identified, it is applied by identifying the particular fact or combination of facts that bring a scenario within the scope of the rule and then subjecting those facts to the rule. Ouch, sounds hard! The cases contain countless illustrations of how it is done. That is why reading them is so important.
How will I know what the issues are?
Being able to recognise the existence of legal issue is a core legal skill. If you do the readings, engage with the unit resources, and read the relevant cases, you will be able to recognise the legal issues in the factual scenario. To be blunt, almost anyone with a search engine could tell you about the law on a basic legal point. The important skills taught at law school involve recognising legal issues and applying law to the facts. Both of these skills come from reading cases.
You should say something about each element of the offences you consider, but you do not need to discuss an element in depth if on the facts, it is entirely straightforward and obvious (in which case, it won’t be ‘an issue’).
How much research will I have to do?
Most of the cases required for answering this question are discussed (although not necessarily extracted) in the textbook, listed in the required readings or discussed in the lectures. Recommended cases are also an important resource. Research might help you find other relevant cases.
How should I present my answer?
Your answer should be written in grammatically correct prose. Referencing should be compliant with the AGLC (4th ed). Ensure that spelling is correct in Australian English.
I recommend that students ensure that word processing software defaults to Australian English and that a spell checker and grammar checker are used before the document is submitted.
Wasting words
There is nothing to be gained from repeating the facts of the question.
There is nothing to be gained from repeating the facts of other cases. Doing this will create the impression that, although you realise that there is a factual analogy between the case and the facts in the question, you don’t understand the legal principles from the case, and you don’t know how to apply them to the facts.
There is nothing to be gained from quoting entire sections of legislation. Doing this will create the impression that you don’t really understand the legislation because you can’t put its effect concisely into your own words.
Help! It’s literally impossible to answer the question within the word limit!
Meeting word limits is always tough, but it is always possible to answer the question to HD standard within the word limit. Below are my tips for managing the word count:
- Are all of your issues really relevant on these facts?
- Make sure that your structure is coherent and doesn’t require repetition.
- Paraphrase concisely, rather than use direct quotes (paraphrasing is also preferable because the marker can see that you understand – a direct quote does not convey understanding).
- Use headings and subheadings.
- Some students write beautifully with rich adjectives and adverbs. Conversely, legal writing is crisp, yet grammatically correct. Consider whether your adjectives and adverbs are necessary.
- Develop a crisp sentence structure, eg, from a past student dealing with a question about grounds for appeal: ‘I have addressed only the issues I think are relevant to get up on appeal, and yet keep exceeding the word limit by hundreds.’ Word count: 24, could be redrafted without loss of content as: ‘I have addressed only relevant appellate issues, yet the word count is exceeded by hundreds.’ Word count: 15.
Conversely, if your final draft is hundreds of words below the word limit, you have a different kind of problem. The word limit is an indication of the amount of detail expected, given the number of issues. If you have hundreds of words to spare, you might have missed one or more issues, or you might need to consider the issues in more detail.
Where can I get help with the assignment?
Gilbert Meyns gmeyns@une.edu.au, UNE’s law librarian, has created a LAW162 library assignment guide which appears as a link in the assessment module. It contains handy links to a number of criminal law specific resources.
Nola Holmes nholmes5@une.edu.au is the first-year student advisor and she can assist with general study and assignment skills.
The Law Skills Hub (LSH) has amazing how-to resources including research, referencing, reading, writing and sample assignments.
And the Unit Coordinator, Michelle, will, as always, answer your questions (where possible) on the Assessment Forum.
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